Rude Mechanicals present Arden Now (As You Like It) at the Greenbelt Arts Center, Aug 18-Sep 3

The Rude Mechanicals present
Arden Now (As You Like It)
By William Shakespeare
Adapted by Melissa Schick, Diana Dzikiewicz, and The Company
Director: Melissa Schick
Assistant Director: Eric Honour
Composer: Diana Dzikiewicz

August 18 to September 3, 2017

PARENTAL ADVISORY: Recommended for ages 13 and up. This show contains profanity.

Location: Greenbelt Arts Center

Using William Shakespeare’s As You Like It as a framework, this play celebrates the diversity of love using modern concepts of romance, relationships, gender, and sexuality. The show takes place in a gender blank alternate universe where gendered pronouns are unnecessary. The story line is also altered to represent love in its many forms. We feature monogamous relationships, polyamorous relationships, kinky relationships, and asexual queerplatonic friendship. The show is scored with live music and we borrow songs and poems from other sources to round out the experience. You’ll even see Shakespeare in languages including Spanish, French, Tamil, Italian, and ASL. Come see the delightful chaos in the Forest of Arden, and see it resolved by Hymen, the God of Enthusiastic Consent, along with a special appearance from Orlando’s long lost sibling to wrap the whole thing up in a bow. You might even get a snack at the end, we’re just saying.

This collaborative adaptation sets Shakespeare’s As You Like It in a world where ideals of beauty and desirability are more celebratory of people’s unique individuality and where mainstream society does not attempt to impose a restrictive binary concept of gender to categorize people. Striving to tell this classic story in ways that are fully inclusive, body-positive, and sex-positive, the Rude Mechanicals have cut the original text down, made some creative edits, and have added music, movement, and poetry that express love and exuberance through a variety of times, cultures, and genres. Because if all the world’s a stage, everyone should be represented.

Ticket prices: $22 General Admission, $20 Students/Seniors/Military, $12 Youth (12 and under with adult). Buy tickets here.

Tags: Greenbelt Arts Center, Greenbelt Maryland, Rude Mechanicals, As You Like It, William Shakespeare, Melissa Schick, Eric Honour, Diana Dzikiewicz