Kate the Cursed is Loose!

Erin here. Founder of the company, director of the show. We have talked about doing Shrew since we started the company. Such an obvious one for us to do, and everyone wants to know how we'll play that infamous last scene—as if there were any question at all! And no, I'm not giving you the answer here—you just have to come see it. All I'll say is that it's Shakespeare's sexiest, sassiest comedy, and fireworks will be flying all summer around here.

Usually when we rehearse a show, we have one cast member blog. In this show, it's much more apt to have two—Kate Jopson, who is playing Kate (the titular Shrew) and El Beh, who is playing Petruchio, the Tamer of the aforementioned. I'll probably butt in now and then too, since it's my last show with the company (I'll be handing the reins to the elegant and infinitely capable Victoria Evans Erville, but that's another story...), and that has made me particularly wordy about what we do and why we do it.

We do all-female Shakespeare. We do it because when we began 12 seasons ago, there were few roles for women in classical work, and even modern plays weren't giving us the full range of human experience to explore—the men got that, and we were hungry for what they had. Times have really changed—now we have all these fantastic roles for women being written (and more well-rounded roles for men too) and other local companies hiring women for a broader (no pun intended) types of roles. One of the actors in this new production was 9 years old when we started—her experience of women on stage surely is different from mine growing up. I can't wait to see how the company changes with the world.

But for me, for this last show with my first baby, I'm going retro. Thinking back to how rip-roaring fun everything was when we were new and trying all this all-female stuff for the first time, before we had the good reputation we wanted to keep. Back when we were bad girls, shrews even. Thinking back even further to my high school trip to Ashland, aged 16, tripping through a cemetery with a boyfriend, quoting Shrew by heart, wooing each other with this ancient play. Our first time—with Shakespeare. Young and sassy and sexier than we even knew. That's what it's all about. Youth and theater—same hot and bothered energy. And the Shrew? Can't wait to play with her again.