Wyoming Arts Council

Wyoming Shakespeare Festival Company takes Kate and Petruchio on the road this summer

Featured News | June 17, 2015

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News from the Wyoming Shakespeare Festival Company:

Wyoming Shakespeare Festival Company is touring THE TAMING OF THE SHREW in 2015. William Shakespeare’s comedy’s ongoing appeal is easy to understand — it offers pure, production proof farce plus the perennially popular joke about the eternal battle of the sexes. But Katherina’s story and the joke of taming an unruly woman have become increasingly controversial even here in Wyoming where seemingly tame women are fearfully suspicious. Petruchio and Kate are the quintessential couple in conflict and probably the most unusual love story in the classical canon. Brilliant and combative, almost to the point of madness, they are at once attracted and exasperated by one another. At some level we sense that they must end up as a couple or they will both be destined for a life of loneliness, as each is the only person that might be able to bear-up to the force of the other.

Kate and Petruchio are heroes who defend what is fundamentally just despite the play’s world of characters who buy and sell justice cheaply. THE TAMING OF THE SHREW is a travesty for audiences to enjoy laughing at those striving for nobility and those who miss the mark every time.

Petruchio speaks of his wife, Kate:

She is my goods, my chattels; she is my house,

My household-stuff, my field, my barn,

My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything.

While touring, Wyoming Shakespeare offers an hour long pre-show workshop for students as young as 7 on up. They will explore the play with the director and actors. The participants can balance such evidence above, to decide if Shakespeare was a genderist, against Shakespeare’s female characters, many of whom are clearly more intelligent and resourceful than their male counterparts. They will experiment with different ways of speaking Petruchio’s lines, both boys and girls. How serious is he? Is it all just a joke? While training with the company for an hour, students will argue for and against Shakespeare’s chauvinism while understanding the plot and acting some of the roles. Wyoming Shakespeare hopes the workshops will heighten audience involvment while providing a deeper appreciation for  Shakespeare’s works.

Here’s the touring schedule for THE TAMING OF THE SHREW:

June 30, July 7,14 & 21: Lander Valley High School Auditorium, Lander, 7 p.m.

July 15: Lander City Park, 6 p.m.

July 1: Central Wyoming College Peck Theatre, Riverton, 7 p.m.

July 16: Fremont County Library, Lander Branch, 6 p.m.; teen workshop at 3 p.m.

July 8: Casper College, Casper, 7 p.m.; hosted by ARTCORE

July 9: Gillette College, Gillette, 6 p.m.

July 10: Pioneer Park, Torrington, 6 p.m.

July 11: Cheyenne Botanic Gardens, Cheyenne, 5 p.m., with workshop at 3 p.m.

July 17: Bunning Park, Rock Springs, 6 p.m., with workshop at 3 p.m.

July 20: Dennison Lodge, Dubois, 7 p.m.

FMI: wyoshakes@gmail.com

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