English Theatre Milan STILL Seeking Actors

Oct.2022-April 2023:

AS YOU LIKE IT, WITH MUSIC & SONGIN-HOUSE THEATRE WORKSHOP AND PERFORMANCEAS YOU LIKE IT, WITH MUSIC AND SONG, explores themes central to our lives: love and hate, tyranny and exile, forgiveness and reconciliation, court and country life, friendship bonds, gender politics, and not least, music and songs. As You Like it (1599) still chimes loud in our present, underscoring that even if life is full of adversity, seen in Duke Senior’s exile to the forest and his daughter Rosalind’s mistreatment, people continue to find love (four couples get married) and support each other (Adam and Orlando, Celia and Rosalind). People, moreover, can sometimes change when in contact with nature; in the forest Oliver, who was selfish and materialistic, falls in love with Celia, while believing her to be penniless. He also makes peace with his younger brother, Orlando. Duke Frederick, who sent his brother, Duke Senior, into exile, reinstates him to his dukedom and undergoes a religious conversion, deciding to stay in the forest. While not idealizing ‘a return to nature’, Shakespeare shows how life in the forest gives Ganymede (Rosalind disguised as a man) and Orlando a chance to really get to know each other, free from the strict rules of Renaissance society. In our production, we’ll be asking: what can a life close to nature mean for people who have always lived there? And what about the so-called incomers, who have left the city behind them for a country retreat? These questions stand central to the play and are something that many of us who live in overpopulated, polluted, pandemic-ridden cities are toying with today.

JOIN US. In As you Like it, there are roles for everybody, big and small, presupposing a large group of actors. If you are interested in taking part in this new English Theatre Milan production, please email us, with a CV and a short letter of motivation. We will then send you a Zoom link for the first online meeting on 10 October at 6. 30pm (one hour).

WEEKLY MEETINGS of two hours on Wednesdays from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm at the Anglican Church, Via Solferino 17, from October to March. By January actors should have learnt their lines.

TWO Saturday or Sunday meetings (whole days) in March.

A PERFORMANCE in a theatre at beginning of April. We are also looking for songwriters and composers. We aim to create contemporary versions of some of the songs in As You Like it. Do get in touch if you feel like doing some song writing, or composing some new music.

ENGLISH THEATRE MILAN is a nonprofit organization that accepts donations. Click the orange button to contact English Theatre in Milan or register below.

Visit the website here: https://englishtheatremilan.org/