![\"\"](\"http:\/\/communique.uccs.edu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/07\/WebShakespeare2010-232x300.jpg\" "\\"WebShakespeare2010\\"")
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Dates:<\/strong> August 5-28 (Tuesday \u2013 Saturday) 7:30 p.m.<\/p>\n Tickets:<\/strong> $5-$30<\/p>\n Welcome to Windsor, Colorado, pop. 30. It’s a small tent city located at Rock Ledge Ranch, out there by the Garden of the Gods. Nice people, mostly. Some of them a little odd, some pretty regular. There’s a well known fellow by the name of Sir John Falstaff who\u2019s come to town thinking he\u2019ll seduce some attractive married women.\u00a0 There\u2019s a Welsh schoolmaster who wants to have it out with the French doctor. There\u2019s an adorable young maid by the name of Anne, with a bevy of suitors, one favored by mom, another by dad, and another by Anne herself.\u00a0 And there\u2019s one extremely jealous husband, who\u2019s convinced his wife is betraying him with a fat old knight.\u00a0 There are lots of kids who sing and like to dress up as fairies and pinch people. It\u2019s a very lively place, Windsor. You wouldn\u2019t expect anything else from a village created by William Shakespeare.<\/p>\n The Merry Wives of Windsor has always been one of Shakespeare\u2019s most popular plays, and in returning to the great outdoors this summer, THEATREWORKS is responding to tradition and to popular demand. The festival played for 20 years in the city parks before picking up stakes and settling down in the Dusty Loo Bon Vivant Theater. \u201cThe Bon Vivant\u201d was irresistible,\u201d says Murray Ross, \u201cTHEATREWORKS artistic director— it\u2019s such an attractive and flexible playing space, and a very protected and reliable one too.\u201d\u00a0 But after seven years of indoor Shakespeare, the company felt there was something missing: the great outdoors.\u00a0 \u201cThe winds can blow, the rain can come down, you can get hammered by hail, flooded by monsoons and threatened by lightning\u201d Ross says, \u201cbut the truth is there\u2019s something about Shakespeare that belongs outdoors on a summer night. There\u2019s nothing like it.\u201d<\/p>\n So this summer THEATREWORKS returns Shakespeare to the park—but not just any park.\u00a0 The Merry Wives of Windsor will play in the custom festival tent set up on the meadow at Rock Ledge Ranch. Ross says, \u201cit\u2019s by far the most beautiful setting we\u2019ve ever had for Shakespeare—quiet, convenient, the parking is plentiful, it\u2019s secluded, it has a pond, and it is beautiful.\u201d The site is especially appropriate for this summer\u2019s production, since director Kevin Landis is setting the play as if it took place in Colorado Springs in the first decade of the twentieth century. The historically preserved Rock Ledge Ranch provides the perfect location for the village, transplanted from sixteenth century England to turn of the century Colorado (with all of Shakespeare\u2019s language surviving completely intact).<\/p>\n Audiences will be treated to more than a play\u2014they will find themselves immersed in a delightful world, both in and outside of the tent at Rock Ledge Ranch. There will be musicians, minstrels, jugglers, and clowns on the meadow\u2014audiences are invited to picnic first on the beautiful grounds and then see the show, which begins at 7:30, just about sundown.THEATREWORKS has assembled a stellar cast to light up this village.<\/p>\n Robert Rais, widely and justly regarded as the funniest man in town, will jump into a fat suit and chase good looking women in the role of Sir John Falstaff.\u00a0 He will not, however, score; instead he will find himself repeatedly humiliated by two merry wives, played by Amy Brooks and Kara Whitney. Khris Lewin, well known here for his award winning performances as the dashing Cyrano and the haunted prince of Denmark, returns to play the madly jealous husband, Master Ford. Tom Paradise plays a the volatile French doctor, Michael Preston the very self- satisfied parson, and Leah Chandler Mills is Mistress Quickly, so much more than a lusty tavern wench.<\/p>\n Tonya Moake will light up the tent, and some of the surrounding meadows and woods. Roy Ballard is the set designer and Sarah Shaver outfits the village. The director is Kevin Landis.<\/p>\n The Merry Wives of Windsor plays nightly Tuesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 August 5-28.\u00a0 There are no performances on Sunday and Monday evenings.<\/p>\n Tickets to Shakespeare at the Ranch may be purchased online at www.theatreworksCS.org<\/a> or by phone at (719) 255-3232.<\/p>\n — Drew Martorella<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"