Culture
Muskingum University To Host American Shakespeare Center March 18
< < Back to muskingum-university-to-host-american-shakespeare-center-march-18The Muskingum University Faculty Special Events Committee will host a production of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing by the American Shakespeare Center (ASC) on Wednesday, March 18.
The ASC production follows Shakespeare’s play, but features 1970s-inspired costumes and set designs.
The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) in Staunton, Virginia, recovers the joys and accessibility of Shakespeare’s theatre, language and humanity by exploring the English Renaissance stage and its practices through performance and education.
The ASC’s Blackfriars Playhouse, the world’s only recreation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre, is open year‐round for productions of classic plays, which have been hailed by The Washington Post as “shamelessly entertaining” and by The Boston Globe as “phenomenal… bursting with energy.”
Founded in 1988 as Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, the organization became the American Shakespeare Center in 2005.
Much Ado About Nothing, regarded by many as one of Shakespeare’s best comedies, is thought to have been written in 1598 and 1599 and was published in the First Folio in 1623.
“Noting,” which in Shakespeare’s day sounded the same as “nothing,” refers to gossip, rumor and overhearing. In the play, Benedick and Beatrice are tricked into confessing their love for each other, and Claudio is tricked into rejecting Hero at the altar on the erroneous belief that she has been unfaithful.
At the end, Benedick and Beatrice join forces to set things right, and the others join in a dance celebrating the marriages of the two couples.
Show time is 7:30 p.m. in Brown Chapel. Doors will open at 7 p.m., featuring pre-show music by members of the company. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, phone 740-826-8103.