&Sons Theatre To Present LAY OUR SCENE

&Sons Theatre has announced its next production, Lay Our Scene, an irreverent, interactive, choose-your-own-story style retelling of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, which will be presented as part of the 2021 Santa Fe Summer Shakespeare Festival.

"Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona, where YOU lay our scene!" In this tongue-in-cheek (or should we say thumb-in-teeth) virtual production, the audience votes to decide which character will be the protagonist of the story and what choices the characters make along the way.

Highly interactive, this production will combine original text and quippy contemporary dialogue, a rotating cast, colorful artwork, timed voting, and a live chat for a raucous good time. The plot of each show will be determined by the audience, with at least fifteen different shows that any given audience can build. If they choose, the plot can follow the original play, albeit with a contemporary, irreverent spin.

However, the audience can also choose to create a different (or wildly different) story - Juliet can romance Rosaline instead, or they can decide that upon Romeo's exile to Mantua he instead retreats into Verona's sewers to become the King of Rats (in opposition to Tybalt's King of Cats)!

The choices range from fun variations to absurd alternate realities. Lay Our Scene plays off the advantage that nearly everyone is familiar with what happens in Romeo and Juliet, and allows the audience to experience, in a very silly way, what might happen if different choices are made. "Here's your chance to prove you're a better writer than the Bard." Artistic Director Mairi Chanel will write and direct the production, with a cast of actors from New Mexico.

The show is the first of its kind in the state - it will livestream on Twitch, a streaming platform utilized primarily by video gamers and other online content streamers. This allows a high level of interactivity for the audience, bringing them in as a vital part of each performance. Twitch operates as a free website - it does not require an app or an account to view, and performances of Lay Our Scene may be attended for free with just a link to the stream on the &Sons Twitch channel.

The link can be found on the Lay Our Scene page on the &Sons Theatre website. For patrons who would like to offer monetary support to the actors, tech staff, and &Sons Theatre, there will be several tiers of tickets available on our website that come with extra perks, including in-show call-outs and a full version of the script with every potential outcome.

Performances of Lay Our Scene will be June 11 - 27, with Friday and Saturday shows at 6:00 PM MT and Sunday shows (family friendly) at 1:00 PM MT. Tickets and additional information are available on the &Sons website at: http://www.andsonstheatre.com/lay-our-scene.html.

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