Posted on July 20: McMaster Summer Drama Festival brings outdoor theatre to Hamilton

[img_inline align=”right” src=”http://padnws01.mcmaster.ca/images/summerdramafestival_story.jpg” caption=”Summer Drama Festival logo”]A classic comedic farce, an edgy comic drama, and a romantic Shakespearean comedy will take to the stage when the curtain rises on the fourteenth season of the McMaster Summer Drama Festival July 26-31, 2004.
For the 2004 season, the Mac Drama Club and the McMaster Thespian Club in association with the McMaster School of the Arts will bring the week-long festival back to the outdoors of scenic McMaster Universityunder sunlight, sunset, and moonlight.
Productions this year include William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, Molihre's Two Precious Maidens Ridiculed, and Irish playwright Frank McGuinness' Someone Who'll Watch Over Me. Twelfth Night and Two Precious Maidens will both be playing in Faculty Hollow, while Someone will be at the Refectory patio. Admission is by a suggested donation of $5 per performance.
The mix of classic and contemporary pieces in this year's festival brings a vibrant outdoor theatrical presence to the community of Westdale and the City of Hamilton while giving more than 50 McMaster students the opportunity to express themselves in a theatrical setting.
The festival opens Monday, July 26 at 7 p.m. with Molihre's first farcical comedy, Two Precious Maidens Ridiculed (director: Amanda Guiseppi; originally entitled Les Pricieuses Ridicules) in which two ladies, obsessed with the new romance novels sweeping Paris, snub their suitors because they do not measure up to the harlequin hunks from their novels. The suitors get their revenge by sending their servants to woo the ladies, disguised as romantic noblemen. Additional performances are scheduled on Wednesday and Saturday evening at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 12 p.m.
Following that performance at 9 p.m. will be Frank McGuinness' edgy hostage comic drama Someone Who'll Watch Over Me (director: Robert Porter). This late-night play presents an Irishman, an Englishman, and an American trapped in a cell in Lebanon during the Civil War in the late 1980s. They struggle to stay alive and sane by constantly testing one another's wits, faiths, and senses of humour. Additional performances are scheduled on Wednesday and Saturday evening at 9 p.m. and Saturday at 2 p.m. Someone contains mature language and emotional subject matter. Audience discretion is advised.
Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday evenings beginning at 7 p.m. and Saturday at 4 p.m., audiences will be transported back to Elizabethan England with William Shakespeare's classic comedy Twelfth Night (director: Jared Lenover). This play looks outward at appearances and concepts of gender, while looking inward at the many kinds of love that the human psyche is capable of. What begins as a tragedy becomes a hilarious comedy as mistaken identities lead to unusual love triangles.
For further information, and a full schedule of the 2004 McMaster Summer Drama Festival, browse the Web site at www.summerdramafestival.com or call the School of the Arts at 905-525-9140 ext. 27671. Audiences are asked to bring a lawn chair or a blanket, as these are all outdoor venues. Rain venues are available.