Elm Shakespeare Company is one of the oldest and largest providers of free outdoor summer Shakespeare shows in Connecticut. The company’s shows are seen by tens of thousands of people each summer, most of them relaxing on blankets or lawn chairs. Elm Shakespeare uses a mix of professional actors, accomplished local performers and teens in the company’s “Elm Scholars” program. The shows are known for their large exuberant casts, lavish sets and awesome lighting and sound designs. Some of the actors and designers and administrators have worked with the company for its entire 23-year history.
This year’s Elm Shakespeare Company show is “Love’s Labour’s Lost,” which West Hartford’s Capital Classics staged just last year as part of its Greater Hartford Shakespeare Festival. “Love’s Labour’s Lost” concerns Ferdinand, King of Navarre and his three attendants, who have jointly vowed to give up women for several years… just as the Princess of France and her entourage show up for a diplomatic meeting. Naturally, there are numerous instances of love at first sight and attempts to circumvent the abstinence rules. Those aren’t the only romantic complications in this frisky comedy. Elm Shakespeare has chosen to set this frivolity in the early 1920s, at the beginning of the Jazz Age.
Elm Shakespeare’s founding artistic director, James Andreassi, stepped down from that position three years ago (his successor is Rebecca Goodheart), but has returned to the fold as an actor. This year, Andreassi will play the lovestruck Spaniard Don Armado. Also among the 18-member cast: Martin Lewis as the king and Rachel Clausen as the princess, with Aaron Bartz, Lori Vega, Michael Hinton, Sasha Mamoud, Kingston Farady and Betzabeth Castro as their attendants. Martin Jason Asprey (a longtime member of Shakespeare & Co. in Lenox, Mass.) is the goofy messenger Costard, Gracy Brown is the courtier Boyet and Brianna Bauch is Moth the page.
“Love’s Labour’s Lost” runs Aug. 16 through Sept. 2 in Edgerton Park, on the New Haven/Hamden border at 75 Cliff St., New Haven. Performances are Tuesday through Sunday at 8 p.m., with pre-show music concerts by members of the cast starting at 7:30 p.m. Admission is free, but donations are welcome (and rather aggressively solicited.) elmshakespeare.org.
