UW Drama to Stage Trippy, Physical Take on AS YOU LIKE IT

The University of Washington School of Drama will present William Shakespeare's As You Like It, directed by School of Drama Acting & Directing faculty member Jeffrey Fracé, February 10th - 19th at the Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre on the University of Washington Seattle campus.

As You Like It is the fourth show in the School of Drama's 2016-2017 mainstage season, which focuses on plays in which past and present converge. Fracé's production pulls Shakespeare's classic tale of exile and transformation into 1950s America, with a Sci-Fi, B-movie twist.

Funny, melancholy, and anything but sentimental, As You Like It is often unfairly branded as a silly, pastoral romp. Fracé's production lays that notion soundly to rest. Layered with original Americana tunes, this is an unorthodox rendition of the tale of Rosalind and Celia, two cousins who run off to the forest to escape convention. Fun, frisky, and sometimes over-the-top, the show reminds us to love one another as best we can, as long as we can.

Fracé and collaborator Deborah Phillips first adapted this As You Like It for the Stonington Opera House in Stonington, Maine in the summer of 2006. (Side story: During the run of As You Like It, the cast became enamored with an abandoned roadside diner called Conni's Restaurant. They joked about what it would be like if group of experimental theatre artists took over the restaurant. Back in New York-to which they'd absconded with the sign from the actual Conni's-they started Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant, the celebrated, bizarro food/art mashup which the New York Times later called "dinner theatre of the absurd." Fracé was a founding member.)

Fracé says that he thinks of As You Like It as "Hamlet's outtakes." (It is believed that William Shakespeare wrote the two plays simultaneously.) He suggests that we can think of the play as all of the funny parts that were left on the cutting room floor when the bard finished his famous tragedy. "But," says Fracé, "despite being hysterically funny, As You Like It is still melancholy and cynical in its focus on the briefness and futility of life. It's a love story, but hardly a kind word is spoken about love. Shakespeare's still basically riffing on the idea of being orphaned, and he's telling us that we have to learn to love one another better."

IF YOU GO:

As You Like It
By William Shakespeare
Adapted by Jeffrey Fracé and Deborah Phillips
Directed by Jeffrey Fracé

Preview Performances:
Tuesday February 7 & Thursday February 9, 7:30 PM
Opening Night: Friday, February 10, 7:30 PM
Performance Dates:
Saturday, February 11, 7:30 PM
Sunday, February 12, 2:00 PM
Wednesday, February 15, 7:30 PM
Thursday, February 16, 7:30 PM
Friday, February 17, 7:30 PM
Saturday, February 18, 7:30 PM
Sunday, February 19, 2:00 PM

At Glenn Hughes Penthouse Theatre
NE 45th St & 17th Ave NE, University of Washington Seattle campus
Link to map and directions: drama.washington.edu/facilities/glenn-hughes-penthouse-theatre

Cast:
Rosalind Porscha Shaw, MFA/Professional Actor Training Program
Celia Bria Henderson, MFA/Professional Actor Training Program
Touchstone Hazel Lozano, MFA/Professional Actor Training Program
Orlando Allen Miller, MFA/Professional Actor Training Program
Duke Frederick &
Duke Senior Phillip Ray Guevara, MFA/Professional Actor Training Program
Oliver/Amiens Jonathan Shue, BA Drama
Jacques Tamsen Glaser, MFA/Professional Actor Training Program
Phebe Annie Willis, BA Drama

Creative Team:
Scenic Designer Lex Marcos, MFA Scenic Design
Costume Designer Isabel Martin, BA Drama
Lighting Designer Kyle Soble, MFA Lighting Design

Jeffrey Fracé is a veteran theater artist with more than 100 professional credits in the past 25 years as either an actor, director, writer, or producer. Best known as an actor, he is a former Associate Artist of Anne Bogart's Siti Company, performing, touring, and teaching with the company for over 10 years. Recent acting credits include The Life Model at On the Boards, Betrayal at North Coast Rep in California, and Rapture, Blister, Burn; Celebration and Old Times (Pinter Festival); and Lieutenant of Inishmore, all at ACT Theatre in Seattle. Other credits include the Kennedy Center, New York Shakespeare Festival, American Repertory Theatre, Actors Theatre of Louisville, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Stonington Opera House, Cleveland Public Theatre, Chopin Theatre Chicago, La MaMa ETC and the Iberoamericano Festival of Bogota. His directing credits include Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo & Juliet for Stonington Opera House; Mother Courage and Her Children and 1984 for People's Branch Theatre; Romeo & Juliet and A Midsummer Night's Dream for Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre; Don Giovanni for New York Repertory Ensemble. His original work/devised performance credits include The Life Model, Once Upon a Time 6x in the West, Harp Song for a Radical, Barbarians, and Untying My Cement Shoes for University of Washington; plus, independently produced adaptations of King Lear, and Camus' The Stranger. He is a founding member of the award-winning ensemble Conni's Avant Garde Restaurant, writing for and performing in their original shows in New York and nationally. He is also active in New York's and Seattle's contemporary dance scenes: collaborators include Pavel Zustiak/ Palissimo, Carrie Ahern, Yo-el Cassell, Dixie Fun Lee Shulman, Elizabeth Haselwood, Storme Sundberg, and Peggy Piacenza. Originally from Nashville, Tennessee, he worked in Chicago for four years before relocating to New York City, where he received his MFA from Columbia University. He is now based in Seattle, where he teaches acting, directing, movement, and devising theater in the MFA program at University of Washington School of Drama.

The UW School of Drama develops innovative and courageous artists and scholars poised to be the creative leaders of tomorrow. For 75 years it has served as one of this country's leading training institutions for theatre artists and scholars. The School of Drama offers MFA degrees in acting, design, and directing, a four-year undergraduate liberal arts education in Drama, and a PhD in theatre history and criticism. Faculty and alumni have founded theatres such as ACT Theatre, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, The Empty Space Theatre, Jet City Improv, and more recently, the Washington Ensemble Theatre, Azeotrope, and The Horse in Motion. The School of Drama is a laboratory for leading-edge performance research, attracting internationally renowned guest artists like Anne Washburn, Chay Yew, Whit MacLaughlin, and PearlDamour, offering students the opportunity to collaborate with and learn from masters in their field and forge critical connections to the world of professional theatre.

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