Southwest Shakespeare's 15th season is almost here!!!

I can hardly wait for this season to begin. Two of my favorite plays are being performed this year. They are "As You Like It" from Sept. 25th to Oct. 11th, and my ALL TIME FAVORITE, "Winter's Tale" is being done for the Christmas show. I will "swoon" about "Winter's Tale" closer to the show, but first we have.....

This is one of the funniest and most romantic plays! You have Rosalind,Celia, and Orlando hiding out in the forest of Arden. Rosalind, disguised as a boy, is trying to teach Orlando how to court her, (he doesn't know it is her). You have a banished duke and his group also hiding in the forest, and Orlando's evil brother trying to find him to kill him. I'm sure you have all heard the famous, "all the world's a stage..." line and it is from this play. It is non-stop excitement! If you want to introduce your family to Shakespeare, even children from 8 and up, they will love this play.

In my opinion, you need to take children to a play to introduce them to Shakespeare, before they have to read "Romeo and Juliet" in 9th grade! His plays are so much easier to understand when seen on the stage than they are when read in a class. I think that the 9th grade experience is what turns most people off, because they think they can't understand it. So SAD!!!

TRY IT, YOU WILL LOVE IT!! Your family will thank you for it, I promise! Also this season is "Otello", "The Merchant of Venice", and "Tartuffe" (by Moliere, I have not seen this one before but heard it is very funny!)

As a side note-A great documentary on Shakespeare is "Looking For Richard". It won the Oscar for best documentary and was made by Al Pacino and his friends and it is a great intro to Shakespeare and especially the play "Richard III". Check it out!

You can get tickets by calling the Mesa Arts Center at:480.644.6500