Shakespeare’s comedy of love, shipwreck and mistaken identity, Twelfth Night, will be presented at 7 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 3rd and 4th at Beaufort Academy. A Sunday matinee performance has been added at 2:30 p.m. June 5.
Fresh from presenting Romeo and Juliet at USCB, Sea Island Classical Studio built the cast of Twelfth Night around the Studio’s own students. “This is an opportunity for the young people who have studied classical acting skills with us to put what they learned to work. It’s an essential part of our mission to share those skills in dialogue with an audience,” said Twelfth Night director Libby Ricardo.
Twelfth Night was written for celebration – the conclusion of a Christmas season at the court of Queen Elizabeth I, so fun was always the aim. The play is sometimes called riotous for its rambunctious combination of mistaken identity, unexpected places and unforeseen events.
Before Twelfth Night, the Studio co-produced Romeo and Juliet with the University of South Carolina Beaufort as part of a Sea Island Shakespeare Symposium. It was the first play performed at the USCB Hilton Head Gateway Campus, and its success was groundbreaking. “This show did more than connect. It drove its roots deep into the fiber of what USCB is as an institution,” said assistant professor George Pate.
As a proof-of-concept for Sea Island Classical Studio’s mission of bringing classical theater into the mainstream of the rich Lowcountry theater scene, Romeo and Juliet was a thrilling beginning. The Studio intends to continue fulfilling that promise with Twelfth Night.
Advance tickets are $10 and are available online at http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2550498. Students with ID will be admitted FREE but should still reserve their seats online. Tickets will be $15 if purchased at the door.
