The 20th season of Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks – which coincides with The Bard’s 460th birthday – gets under way with the 11th annual Week of Will and includes an indoor reading of the new one-act play This Could be True by Charles David “Stoney” Richards.
For its outdoor season in September, PSiP will perform an adaptation of the comedy Twelfth Night, with a tropical twist.
The Week of Will celebration begins with a tribute just as you like it, by Mrs Shakespeare (Week of Will founder Yvonne Hudson), at Oakland’s Shakespeare statue on Tuesday, April 23, 2024. Week of Will wraps up with an international online puppet slam as a finale on Saturday, April 29.
The play by Richards will take place indoors, at the Union Trust Building, Downtown, where PSiP founder and artistic director Jennifer Tober invites audiences to “enjoy the hilarity and the gravity of Stoney’s wonderful piece, and stay for the post-show talkback and reception with the actors, musicians, and our special guest speakers.”
TV and theater, will be featured in his own work, The Could Be True,
for Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks. (Image: Cat Aceto)
In Richards’ This Could be True, the playwright/performer portrays an actor confined to an insane asylum as he suffers from misidentification syndrome and auditory hallucinations, believing he is a member of Shakespeare’s company. When he learns of Shakespeare’s death, he becomes further obsessed in getting John Heminges and Henry Condell (who led the printing of the First Folio) to publish Will’s plays before “they are scattered by the winds of time.”
“I’ve always been impressed by the storytelling talent of William Shakespeare. As a playwright he was a remarkable rewrite artist. He was able to find stories that many people of his day were already familiar with; Hamlet, Henry V and Macbeth, to name a few. He rewrote them with his own sense of drama, responsibility and the conflicts of life, death, love, all subjects that appealed to his audience’s taste. And this came to mind with This Could be True. I think Will was not afraid to ask, ‘What if?,’ ” Richards said.
Harper York is the Narrator in the play, which finds a medical team (played by Aaron Crutchfield and Anna Singer) believing they have found a way to help the mental torture of Richards’ character. The PSiP description goes on to say, “Through the course of this play much is revealed about Shakespeare, the real life character Jon Sincler and the mental maze this illness can create in the human mind.”
The four staged readings of This Could Be True at the Union Trust Building begin at 7 p.m., April 23 – 26, 2024. Doors open at 6:30 p.m., with performances followed by a wine and cheese reception in the building’s skylight penthouse.
Richards (The Chair, American Rust), who also penned last season’s indoor comedy, Shakespeare: The First Drafts, returns as both playwright and actor in his play. Matt Calvetti is music director/musician, and Tober directs.
WEEK OF WILL SCHEDULE
Statue Tribute by Mrs Shakespeare (Yvonne Hudson) I Songs, sonnets and stories I Steps of Carnegie Music Hall, Forbes Avenue, Oakland I noon on April 23, 2024.
This Could Be True I Staged reading and PSiP fundraiser I Union Trust Building, 501 Grant Street, Downtown I Post-show talks and reception with artists and experts I Tickets: $35 in advance on Eventbrite via PittsburghShakespeare.org. I 7 p.m. April 23 – 26, 2024 (doors open at 6:30 p.m.).
Ciphers to this Great Accompt; An Annual Shakespeare Puppet Slam I Online celebration of international puppeteers inspired by Shakespeare I Reserve a Google Meet link via Eventbrite.
to the Strip District in a 2023. (Image: Cat Aceto)
‘TWELFTH NIGHT’ in SEPTEMBER 2024
The 20th season continues on weekends in September with the festive comedy Twelfth Night, Or What You Will. It was the company’s second indoor production in 2023, when PSiP expanded programming beyond its traditional September shows, which included the play in 2008.
Familiar faces to the company include Nick Hrutkay, at the helm of his abridged version of Twelfth Night, with Calvetti as music director/musician.“Audiences can plan to be immersed in a Jimmy Buffet-esque world, replete with bikinis, a wading pool, and drinks with little umbrellas in our beautiful Pittsburgh parks on weekends in September.” Learn more at https://www.pittsburghshakespeare.com/.
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