Camp Washington-Carver’s Family Homestyle Dinner Theater Series will serve up a two-act comedy for its closing show of the 2006 season on Saturday, Sept. 16, with the Everyman Players’ production of “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).” The dinner buffet begins at 6 p.m. and the show starts at 7:30 p.m.
“The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” is a fast-paced romp through the bard’s work–all 37 plays in 97 minutes. It’s a mix of pratfalls, puns, willful misreading of names and plenty of clunky female impersonations.
The show is performed by three actors who serve as present-day scholars/entertainers acting out the dizzying range of characters who inhabit Shakespeare’s plays. The show was London’s longest-running comedy with a 10-year span and has been praised by the New York Times as having a “gung-ho vitality that is impossible to resist.”
The play is directed by Tara Phares-Pauley, who is a co-founder of the Everyman Players along with her husband Kevin Pauley. Jason Dunbar, Duncan Stokes and Pauley are the three actors in the production. The show was written and first performed by the Reduced Shakespeare Company. It is being produced by special arrangements with Broadway Play Publishing Inc.
The dinner buffet includes a selection of entrees, vegetables, salad and bread. Iced tea, lemonade, soda and coffee also will be served. At intermission, playgoers will be treated to homemade dessert.
Seating is limited. Reservations are recommended, but tickets will be sold the evening of the performance. Tickets are $30 per person for dinner and the performance; $27 for seniors. Children five and under are free. Rough camping is available at the additional rate of $15 per site per night.
The Everyman Players is a Charleston-based, non-profit theater group. The Players’ goal is to make professional quality theater that relates to a English, history or theater curriculum available to West Virginia schools at little or no cost to the school. This Shakespeare production marks their second show at Camp Washington-Carver; they performed here in 2003 in “Godspell.”
For more information about the Family Homestyle Dinner Theater Series or to make reservations for the show, call (304) 438-3005 or (304) 558-0220.
A beautiful retreat listed in the National Register of Historic Places and operated by the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, Camp Washington-Carver serves as the state’s mountain cultural arts center and nurtures the cultural heritage embodied in the site since its dedication in 1942 as a 4-H and agricultural extension camp for West Virginia’s African Americans. The camp is located adjacent to Babcock State Park just off Route 60 (Midland Trail) on Route 41 South in Clifftop, Fayette County.
The West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, an agency of the West Virginia Department of Arts, Culture and History, brings together the state’s past, present and future through programs and services in the areas of archives and history, the arts, historic preservation and museums. Visit the Division’s website at www.wvculture.org for more information about programs of the Division. The Department of Arts, Culture and History is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer.
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