As many in the Manhattan community enjoy the pleasant weather, the Manhattan Arts Center’s opening weekend enjoyed a strong turnout for their rendition of Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It.
Education and Marketing Director Michele Ward says actors and staff were so pleased the audience came out, as during this time their facility is operating with limited seating, masks are required, and social distancing is observed.
“We had really great audiences and lots of laughs. It’s a very funny show and the actors have so much energy and bring so much life to this performance,” Ward said. “And we heard a lot of great feedback from folks, as well as we know that Shakespeare’s can sometimes be difficult for people to completely understand.”
Ward clarifies that the language, even though it’s in English, is in Shakespearean English, and often can be difficult, which the staff then held some subtitles up. Ward continued with the statement that the actors do a phenomenal job of expressing things with their bodies and their faces, even when they’re wearing masks, and that everyone seemed to have a really great time.
“Yeah, it really is the actors. You know, we even though we’re community theater, and these are all local actors, part of what we do is work with folks who have great experience, some folks have more limited experience. But we have wonderful directors, and everyone is really supportive of each other,” Ward said. “So everyone can learn to do what’s best for the performance, and in times like these learning to use their bodies, and even some costuming tricks. They do a really wonderful job of helping the audience through the performance and through the story, and it makes it very funny and very approachable as well.”
Shakespeare’s stories’ relevance, as per Ward, are foundational to the core of what is done today in theater and traditions carried on in literature, the movies that are made, and local traditions as the MAC holds during the summer a Shakespeare Theater for children.
“I think there’s been so many retellings of these stories that they just never go out of style. We do a two week Shakespeare camp with kids, and we have for the last several years,” Ward said. “It’s always wildly popular and the kids totally get it. It’s amazing to watch eight year old’s, totally get Shakespeare and totally understand everything that’s going on. And the fact that we can do that, you know, all the way through folks who are in the golden years of theater isn’t it really a marvelous, marvelous experience.”
As You Like It will remain in the theater another weekend from Friday through Sunday, Friday and Saturday is at 730pm, while Sunday is a 2pm matinee.
All of Manhattan is the stage, and the Manhattan Art Center’s actors are the players in the many upcoming projects being offered.
Ward says the MAC is holding auditions March 7th and 8th for The Three Musketeers, their final play of the season, and everyone is encouraged to audition.
“Everyone is encouraged to audition, all ethnicities, ages 16 and up. There is going to be some stage fighting and some sword fighting taught. So that will be part of the production, which is very appealing,” Ward said. “Directed by Penny Cullers, the show is written by Ken Ludwig, who’s a wonderful, wonderful playwright. We’ve done many of his works here, always very fun and great for the audience.”
Avoiding any confusion, Ward explained they ask interested parties to schedule the auditions in advance, through audition forms online, and then they will be contacted to schedule their audition. This show opens toward April’s end.
Open through March, MAC has two current gallery exhibits: “Invisible Lines” by Katharina Bossmann, a masters of Fine Art student at Kstate holding her Master’s Fine Arts show and “Two weeks, Two cases”, by photographer Luke Townsend.
“She has a really stunning exhibit, she is a printmaker. Some of the prints are enormous. They have to be hung from the ceiling, they’re so large,” Ward said. “It’s a really beautiful exhibit that’s inspired by the relationships between people and also murmuring, which is when birds fly together, and formations and patterns, and how we have to work together to do things.”
“He documented the first two weeks of COVID here in Manhattan, and this is a really stunning example of the images that he took during those weeks,” Ward said. “Folks are going to come in and recognize their favorite restaurants and businesses, the stores they shopped in, see the empty shelves… It’s a flashback of what those first two weeks were like here in Manhattan, during the pandemic.”
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