All of Columbia's A Stage for King's Crown

The mild-mannered, khaki-clad, middle-aged man who walked across Low steps last night around 8:30 p.m. probably didn't expect to come upon an enormous circle of people shouting, in unison, "Shit damn motherfucker motherfucker damn!" We shudder to think what he may have already written about those Columbia students and their abhorrent lack of morals if he happens to work for Fox News or the New York Post.

What he probably doesn't know is that he unwittingly stumbled upon the entire 53-person cast of Much Ado About Nothing, a King's Crown Shakespeare Troupe production, warming up before their second-to-last dress rehearsal for the show that opens tonight.

The cast-whose size is the result of KCST's policy of accepting everyone who auditions for their annual spring show-wasn't just taking advantage of the beautiful April weather. Much Ado is being performed outdoors this weekend, despite the potentially inclement weather.

KCST has been mounting an outdoor show in the spring every year since 1995, and they haven't let a little precipitation stop them yet. "A few years ago, they did Hamlet," says assistant director Stephanie Denzer, CC '09, "and it was three hours long and raining, but they held an audience the entire time."

The production is much more than amateur Shakespeare in the Park. This is Shakespeare on the Steps-and on the grass beside the steps, and the Butler lawns, and the area in front of Furnald. Each scene of the play takes place in a different spot, beginning on the steps and making a gradual loop around campus before ending where it started in front of Low.

Don't worry about getting lost while trying to find out where to go next, though. Friendly cast members called "shills" will be leading the audience from location to location, using "several different methods" to direct the crowd, according to shill extraordinaire Jeff Julian, CC '08. Be forewarned: these methods involve the use of objects such as a feather duster, a spray bottle, and "an enormous hose."

Oh, and one more thing-the shills' faces will be covered in bright blue makeup. "Painting the shills blue-Krishna blue, to be precise-was one of the first ideas my art directors had for the show," says director Pitr Strait, CC '07.

Another unique element of the show is the live band that accompanies the audience as it moves from place to place. The group, made up of a guitarist, a singer, an oboe player and an accordionist, will be playing crowd pleasing and proudly anachronistic songs like "Champagne Supernova," "Fly Me to the Moon," and "I Can't Help Falling In Love With You."

The combined presence of the band, the shills, and the performers themselves makes Much Ado seem less like the kind of stuffy Shakespeare production you put on in high school and more like an interactive concert-slash-theatrical experience. Everything about the show, from its brightly colored costumes to its dedicated performers, is exuberant.

Considering all of Much Ado's exciting, unusual elements, the subject matter of the play itself may seem secondary to the spectacle as a whole. Audience members should try to pay attention to the plot, though, because it's a good one.

The comedy is essentially about the trials and tribulations of two pairs of lovers. The first is made up of Claudio (Jeff Brown, GSAS '08), who Strait calls "a lovesick doof who doesn't know what's good for him and falls ass backwards into beautiful love," and his paramour, Hero (Rosie DuPont, BC '10). The other is the constantly bickering duo of Beatrice (Luciana Colapinto, CC '07), Hero's cousin, and Benedick (Austin Smith, CC '10), Claudio's comrade.

As Denzer puts it, "Everyone has just come back from war, and nobody wants to think about war anymore-they want to fall in love."

Before the lovers can end up happily ever after, though, they have to deal with the dastardly doings of the evil Don John (Jason Resnikoff, CC '08), who plots to ruin the heroes' happiness. Typical Shakespearian shenanigans like mistaken identities and "merry war[s] of words" ensue. There's nothing to worry about, though-in Much Ado, everything ends well.

That's a big part of the reason that Strait wanted to put on this show in the first place. "I'm actually not a huge Shakespeare nut," the director says. "I read a lot of his plays and analyses of his plays when it was time to propose a show, and it came to me that it was time for KCST to do a comedy. I've historically directed tragedies. What's great about this show is that there are the funny parts, and then there are also these crucial moments that are heartbreaking. Directing this has convinced me that Shakespeare is as good as everyone says he is-he pulls off both sides very well."