For the third year running, Reduxion Theatre Company will take Shakespeare to the people. Through April 13, audiences can revisit one of the Bard’s original comedies, Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Reduxion partnered with Metropolitan Library System to create an accessible, interactive theater-going experience.
Shakespeare should be for everybody, according to Tyler Woods, Reduxion’s artistic director. He believes that exposing children to the stage can be life-changing.
His sentiments are echoed by his wife, Erin Woods, Reduxion’s managing director. She said the libraries provide a come-and-go, stress-free environment for families with small children.
“Young children and people in their 80s walk through the door and they see these people in costumes running around shouting Shakespeare in the midst of the library lobby, and they are fascinated and they stop and watch,” Tyler Woods said.
Dana Morrow, MLS director of outreach, said she sees the tour as an opportunity to give children a Shakespearean experience.
“The work that we have in books comes alive,” she said.
The love story, which has been modernized and set in 1953 Spain for this production, will be accompanied by original music and actors interacting with library audiences. “The little kids scream with excitement and love it,” said Tyler Woods.
Libraries fit well with Reduxion, he said, because the theater company’s emphasis is on the playwright’s original intent and message, not elaborate set design or fancy lights.
“What [audiences] leave with is a fresh new take on the story,” he said.
This article appears in Mar 6-12, 2013.