For months now the Williston theatre faculty have been planning next year’s theatre season. We kept things under wraps so students could focus on our spring production. Now that the bulk of our work for this year is behind us it’s time to get excited about what lies ahead. I’m pretty terrible at keeping secrets so I was thrilled to finally share the news on Thursday to a crowd of eager actors, directors, stage managers, and designers.

And without further ado- here it is! The 2015-2016 Williston Theatre Season!

Fall Play: Euripides’ The Trojan Women

Written in the 5^th century B.C.E. during the Peloponnesian War, Euripides’ The Trojan Women depicts the reality of what happens to women and children in conflict zones. The play was written nearly three thousand years ago but tells an eerily modern tale. In conjunction with the production actors will create booklets that educate our community about contemporary refugee crises. We will have talk-backs after each performance to begin a dialogue about what we can do about these conflicts and to discuss the play itself.

Winter Theatre Lab: Fish Out of Water

Student directors will select one-act plays dealing with characters who, in one way or another, don’t quite fit in. Theatre Lab productions will be brought to life by student teams of directors, designers, actors, and stage managers.

Spring Musical: In the Heights. Music and Lyrics by Lin-Manuel Miranda, book by Quiara Alegría Hudes.

With its musical roots in hip-hop and salsa, In the Heights took audiences by storm when it hit Broadway in 2008. It ultimately won the Tony for Best Musical, catapulting its composer, Lin-Manuel Miranda, to fame.  In the Heights  tells the story of residents in Washington Heights, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, as they struggle to make lives for themselves despite poverty, oppression, and gentrification. It’s a beautiful celebration of family, love, and the resilience of the human spirit.

As always,  we will close the year with the 8th Grade Shakespeare Project and Senior Projects.

I am sure, as many as have good
beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my
kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.

And with those words, spoken for the last time on Saturday night, we ended the run of As You Like It. Our last show, performed to a packed house of teachers, friends, parents, and members of the Easthampton community, was as lively as opening night. The wear and tear of two weeks of performance and late tech nights was nowhere to be seen.

We gathered yesterday for strike- the tradition of breaking down the set, returning the theatre to neutral and preparing it for the next performance. While strike is always bittersweet, last night offered the cast and crew the important opportunity to be together again and say goodbye to the production.

We opened the show last week to packed houses. It was thrilling to see our audiences get excited about Shakespeare. I hear the play may have even inspired a few students to try their hand at acting.

As I was chatting with one student after the show he said, “Emily, I really liked it.” He paused. “May I make a comment though?” “Of course” I answered. “I found the play really sexist.”  And thus began a truly amazing conversation. I told this student that I absolutely agreed with him. It is sexist. The fact that (spoiler alert!) Phebe has to marry Silvius against her will and that Rosalind greets her father and soon-to-be husband with the phrase, “To you I give myself, for I am yours,” is difficult to swallow in 2015.

There are plays, once considered progressive, that would be divisive if put on the stage today. Some consider West Side Story to be one: a play well-beloved, but in its original form portrays ugly stereotypes. Luckily, composer-lyricist Lin-Manuel Miranda, of In the Heights and Hamilton fame, rewrote much of the play to include contemporary portrayals of Puerto Ricans grounded in truth. We do not have such luck with Shakespeare, whose plays are stuck in a time when women were not even permitted to go to the theatre alone, lest they be mistaken for prostitutes. It’s shocking to look at what happens to Phebe at the end of As You Like It and consider Shakespeare progressive, but he was for his time.

Countless scholars have devoted themselves to analyzing sexism in Shakespeare’s plays. Their results are all over the map. Some scholars are certain Shakespeare was challenging the status quo, others feel he was poking fun at progressives who dared to believe that women could hold more power. I choose to believe the former.

While what happens to Phebe at the end of the play is less than ideal, I take my cues about Shakespeare’s intentions from the rest of the play. Shakespeare chooses to put a female at the helm of As You Like It. Rosalind takes her future into her own hands and schools her potential life-partner in the ways of a true lover. To take things a step further,  Shakespeare marries two men onstage (Ganymede and Orlando) and gives a man (Ganymede) the line “I [love] no woman.” While the audience knows Ganymede is Rosalind in disguise, the characters in the scene do not. All of this points in the direction of Shakespeare challenging the status quo. Can a woman be in charge of a relationship? Can two men fall in love? Shakespeare answers yes.

This does not negate that Phebe is forced to marry a man she does not love. It’s upsetting. This doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do this play. Not only does it offer so much other food-for-thought, in shying away from problematic plays we close ourselves off from difficult conversations. We should take the opportunity to begin a dialogue about sexism in Shakespeare, in contemporary theatre, and in the 21st century as a whole. There is a difference though, between problematic plays and plays that purport repugnant ideas about gender, race, and sexual orientation.  Those ones, as far as I’m concerned, should never see the light of day.

We still have three more performances to go. If you haven’t had a chance to see the play, or want another shot, visit our website to reserve your tickets.

Like all good comedies, As You Like It addresses social norms and encourages audiences to question the status quo. In this seemingly light comedy (that most people remember as the “one where she goes to the forest dressed like a guy”) Shakespeare makes his voice heard on the most pressing topics of his day- gender roles, land grabbing, and censorship. Using traditions defined by the Italian Comedy, Shakespeare brings universal truths to light through laughter. Jonathan Swift, Trey Parker and Matt Stone of South Park fame, and Stephen Colbert clearly took note.

While the entire play is full of terrific food for thought, three characters are shining examples of Shakespeare’s subversive ideas. The court fool Touchstone delivers some of the most glaring social commentary in the play. With his name, which references an actual touchstone- an object that tells us whether or not something is real or fake- Shakespeare sends us the not-so-subtle message to heed the truth that Touchstone speaks. Since the days of the court jester, the clown has played the role of truth-teller. Spreading subversive ideas gets a lot easier when you can shrug these ideas off as a silly joke.  One of Touchstones most enduring lines, “The more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly” harkens to this point exactly.

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We are about two weeks away from opening night. That means scripts are gone, costumes are being adjusted, lights are being hung, and tickets are being sold! It’s an exciting and busy time for us.

Recently, I was lucky enough to get some photos from Technical Director Charles Raffetto that show the evolution of the set for As You Like It. Students in the afternoon program in technical theatre are working tirelessly to bring the Forest of Arden to life on the Williston stage. I managed to sneak into the costume shop to grab a few pictures of the original creations costume designer Ilene Goldstein has made for the show. Here are a few snapshots of our progress.