Junior Theatre Explores Gender And Identity In Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT

San Diego Junior Theatre will present William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, or What You Will at the Casa del Prado Theatre, January 10-19, 2020. This production utilizes gender-fluid casting and explores concepts of gender and identity through Shakespeare's text. Post-show talkbacks covering these topics will take place on Saturday, January 11 and 18. Tickets are $14 for Youth and $16 for Adults. Visit this link for tickets and more information.

Twelfth Night gives us one of Shakespeare's most remarkable heroines, the quick-witted Viola, who assumes the disguise of a page boy for Duke Orsino and finds herself at the center of an explosive love triangle in which identity, passion, and gender all threaten to come undone.

Merriam Webster's Word of the Year is 'they,' the gender neutral pronoun used in place of 'he' or 'she.' The themes of gender frequently appear in Shakespeare's plays and are part of the plot in Twelfth Night. San Diego Junior Theatre's production takes this to the next level through gender-fluid casting and exploring concepts of gender and identity.. Post-show talkbacks on Saturday, January 11 and 18 featuring the cast, Mick Rabin from the Department of Youth Advocacy, Junior Theatre Teaching Artist Sarah Siegel, and Cris Sotomayor, Youth Services Manager at the San Diego LGBT Community Center.

In addition to addressing timely conversations about gender and identity, Twelfth Night is a dramatic masterpiece that will keep audiences on the edge of their seats. "William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is a special play. Arguably it has one of the most effective theatre devices working in its favor, a secret. The audience knows a secret the rest of the characters do not," says Director Justin Lang.

"We follow our protagonist Viola, and experience life through her eyes as she carries a secret, she is really a woman presenting as a man in order to survive the world she finds herself in. This trick has been used throughout time but no one has mastered this device quite like Shakespeare. In Twelfth Night, audiences find themselves engaged and entertained from the first line to the last as this play holds the mirror up to nature."

All Junior Theatre productions are performed in Balboa Park's historic Casa del Prado Theatre, at the corner of Old Globe Way and Village Place. Tickets are $14 - $16. For tickets and more information, visit juniortheatre.com, or call the box office at (619) 239-8355.

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