Shakespeare on 5th Street: Twelfth Night and a Partially Drunken Hamlet

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Courtesy of Bard & Bourbon

Hamlet

Theatre Unchained will be launching a production of Twelfth Night towards the end of this month. The classic comedy will run Feb. 19 - Mar. 1. The tiny studio theatre space on 1024 S. 5th street can make for a really intimate fugue with Shakespeare. Some time ago I saw a really memorable production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in the space. Sitting in the front row for that show might have been one of the closest encounters I’ve had with Shakespeare.

Twelfth Night rolls off the stage in early March. It’s not listed on the Theatre Unchained website, but tickets ARE available for another Shakespeare show that’s being staged at Theatre Unchained courtesy of Bard & Bourbon. As the name would suggest, this is another attempt to fuse Shakespeare with actual alcohol live and onstage. (Boozy Bard is doing something like this at the Best Place Tavern.)

Just a few days after the stage has been cleared from Tewlfth Night, Bard & Bourbon Theatre Company will present its staging of Hamlet.

From the event listing:

“Bard & Bourbon is dedicated to performing beautiful, fully staged productions of classical works while getting one actor very drunk over the course of the show." Sounds novel. The cool thing about it is that it’s not the same actor every time. It’ll be a different actor getting drunk every night. Weird.

The cast includes Ethan Hall, Katie Merriman, Hayley Cotton, Grace DeWolff, and Tawnie Thompson. The Facebook postings from Bard & Bourbon have included a series of photos taken with a pair of skulls. One of them has the two wearing Packers gear. Another has them in the snow hanging out on a sled. Kind of reminds me of the old “Skully” comic strips from the mid-1990s. It’s cute. There’s no reason to doubt that the production will be anything less than cute.

Bard & Bourbon’s production of Hamlet runs Mar. 6 - 15 at Theatre Unchained. Tickets are available now at Brown Paper Tickets.