Seattle Public Theater's Youth Presents AS YOU LIKE IT, Now thru 8/23

Seattle Public Theater's (SPT) Youth present a festive, grunge-era take on William Shakespeare's classic comedy-romance, As You Like It.

SIX [free] performances: Tonight, August 15 @ 7pm, Saturday, August 16 @ 7pm, Sunday, August 17 @ 2pm, Friday August 22 @ 7pm, Saturday August 23 @ 2pm & 7pm. Admission to all youth performances are free to the community. Donations are encouraged to support SPT's Theater Youth Program and to offer student tuition assistance.

SPT Youth update the setting of Shakespeare's timeless comedy-romance to 1990s Las Vegas, where Rosalind and Celia escape the greed and cruelty of their high-rolling parents and run away to the idylls of a Lollapalooza-like music festival where the line-up includes artists, musicians, and a new world of thinking. Because, you know, "All the world's a stage."

"As You Like It is a celebration of all kinds of love; parental and familial, physical and spiritual, immediate and unrequited, passionate and cerebral, joyful and melancholic, and contradictory impulses are allowed to hold equal weight," says SPT Artistic and Education Director, Shana Bestock. "To paraphrase Shakespeare, 'To be in love is to be both all patience and all impatience'. The transformation of this chaos of contradictory impulses into coherency is theater magic - magic made possible by the generosity, exuberance, thoughtfulness, and integrity of our young artists at SPT."

As You Like It is directed by Shana Bestock, with text coaching by Madison Gordon. The production features the acting talents of Aidan Linder, Annika Prichard, Chloe Swedberg, Gabriel Klein, Isabelle Moore, Joe Moore, Karinna Gerhardt, Laura Rude, Leo Campbell-Klein, Lucy Barcott, Mitzi Adler-Wachter, Nathanial Mascis, Olivia Sterne, Oscar Loveless, Rachel Rosenbloom, Ricky Spaulding, Davely Moody and Skylar Tibbetts. As You Like It is stage managed y Ashley Arthur, assistant stage managed by Madeline Golliver and by Gabe Airth, with costume design by Inga Phlegar, prop design by Katherine Draves, Eileen MacDonald on run crew with Jessica Salas as board op.

This ensemble features actors grades 9 to 12.