Bespoke Theatre to bring ‘Merry Wives’ to Carillon Park
Bespoke Theatre, devoted to producing classical theater, returns outdoors this summer with William Shakespeare’s witty farce “The Merry Wives of Windsor” beginning Friday, Aug. 18 in the lawn behind Carillon Brewing Company at Carillon Park.
Having previously staged “The Tempest” and “Macbeth,” two plays with darker undertones, Bespoke turns the page for an all-out comedy concerning seduction, greed, sisterhood, mistaken identity, arrogance, jealousy, deception, humiliation, and romance. The main plot involves the hefty Sir John Falstaff (memorably featured in “Henry IV”) and his complicated entanglements with Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, the wives of two prominent Windsor citizens.
Situations humorously escalate when the women discover Falstaff ’s motives and consp iretoruinhim.
“In this show, multiple male characters underestimate two ‘merry wives’ who end up putting the foolish males through a series of trials and humiliations,” said Amy Askins, who por- trays Mistress Ford and was the hilariously scheming Melpomene in the Dayton Playhouse’s local premiere of “Xanadu” last season.
“Perhaps this show is a timely reminder to those among us who feel a woman’s id e ntity is wholly dependent on her relationship to the men around her.”
“This show is very light and all of the characters have huge blind spots,” added director/founder Patrick Allyn Hayes, who appeared as conflicted Dr. Frederick Treves in the Dayton Theatre Guild’s production of “The Elephant Man” last season.
“There are things these characters are simply incapable of seeing. For instance, when Falstaff looks in the mirror he doesn’t see a 65-year-old overweight man but a 30-year-old stud. He sees himself as he is in his prime. So, there is a huge blind spot when he thinks he’s going to romance these particular women. The blind spots throughout allow the characters to walk into obvioustraps.”
The cast, ra nging from ages 10 to 80, i n cludes Thomas Stiver as Falstaff, Janet Wasson as Mistress
IF YOU GO
“The Merry Wives of Windsor” The lawn behind Carillon Brewing Co. at Carillon Park, 1000 Carillon Blvd., Dayton Aug. 18-27; 7 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays; 3 p.m. Sundays Free but donations are encouraged Visit Bespoke Theatre on Facebook at www. facebook.com/BespokeTheatreCo Patrons are reminded to bring their own seating Page, Micha elSchumacher as Ford, Shaun Diggs as Page, Hannah Rahe Goodman as Ann Page, Coleman Clark as Fenton, Vanessa Friday as Mistress Quickly, Mark Andrew Reuter as Sir Hugh Evans, Isaac Hollister as Dr. Caius, Cullen J. Bower as Host, Bill Styles as Shallow, Ben Sanders as Slender, William Snider as Robin, and Abby Rutan as Simple. Nearly all cast members will be portray- ing multiple roles as well.
Hayes, notably trimming the script to roughly 1 hour and 45 minutes without intermi s sion a nd incor- porating elements of
, says he’s excited to present the play at Carillon Park. The venue provides a livelier ambiance inherent to what he has always desired for the troupe.
“I always foresaw Bespoke (embracing) more of a fes- tive or festival atmosphere where people could get food, grab a beer, sit outside, and watch a show,” he said.
“We want to create the atmosphere that might have been at the Globe Theatre when Shakespeare was writing his plays.”
Guitar rock isn’t trendy. Acts like ZZ Top and Parquet Courts aren’t topping the pop charts these days, but rock ’n’ roll never goes out of style. If you look at the schedule for any venue, you’re going to see a large number of guitar-centric acts like 3 Doors Down, returning to Fraze Pavilion in Kettering on Thursday, Aug. 17.
“Guitar rock is one of the most established genres of American music,” said 3 Doors Down singer Brad Arnold, speaking over the telephone from his adoptive home of Murfreesboro, Tenn. “To me, it’s a lmost better when everybody’s not doing it because, for the people thatwantthat,itleavesyou out in the open for them to hear you, rather than being amongst the fog of everybody doing the same thing.”
It has been 21 years since 3 Doors Down formed in Escatawpa, Miss. Today, the group is rounded out by Chris Henderson (rhythm guitar), Chet Roberts (lead guitar), Justin Biltonen (bass) and Greg Upchurch (drums). The group’s latest album, “Us and the Night,” was released in 2016.
“As much as we try, I don’t think we’ll ever get away from guitar rock,” Arnold said. “On ‘Us and the Night’ we really left it open to go in different directions but as much as we can aim to the right or t he left, the top or the bottom, but our sound is always going to get pulled back toward the middle. That’s always who we’re going to be and that’s cool with me because I don’t really know anything else.”
For Arnold, the biggest change was his decision to get sober in January 2016.
“I was never too much into drugs, but I drank too much,” he said. “There wasn’t anything traumatic that led me to that, it’s just I started playing in bars when I was 16 years old. I started drinking thenandIgotouthereand started living this life. You just wade a little deeper in the water and a little deeper and then, all of a sudden you’re drown ing.Goingto treatment is the best thing I’ve ever done.
“I think our show has gotten a little bit better in the last year in and a half or so because everybody in the band is now completely sober,” Arnold added. “We have more fun and we put more into our shows. Not that we were always trashed out there, but I think you can definitely tell the differ- ence in the shows. We just do better now.”