Photo credit: JTBackesPhotography
As Bard & Bourbon describes its theatrical vision, the company is “dedicated to performing beautiful, fully staged productions of classical works with a touch of irreverence. Each production features small, non-traditional casts playing multiple parts while getting one actor very drunk over the course of the show.” (That state of increasing inebriation comes via shots of 80-proof whiskey partaken of as the show unfolds). Bard & Bourbon’s four-show season starts with a toast to William Shakespeare’s 1602 comedy Twelfth Night—a play centered on twins (Sebastian and Viola) separated during a shipwreck. It’s a classic tale of mixed-up and misbegotten love and mistaken identities as only The Bard could impart.
Twelfth Night’s director, Dylan Sladsky, is no stranger to local theater; he’s formerly worked with The Rep, Cooperative Performance and Village Playhouse. As for the increasingly sozzled thespian, well, that changes from performance to performance and actor to actor for, as Bard & Bourbon explains, they “choose small casts to allow the greatest number of actors possible to have a ‘drunk night,’” adding, “Shakespeare and the actors of his time were pretty routinely drunk themselves, so one could argue that we’re simply respecting tradition.”
Aug. 31-Sept. 3 at the Tenth Street Theatre, 628 N. 10th St. For tickets, visit bardandbourbon.com.
