Shake It Up

Considering that “all the world’s a stage,” it no longer seems the least bit far-fetched for Boulder’s time-honored Colorado Shakespeare Festival to toss a musical about American folk legend Woody Guthrie into its summer mix. No matter that Brooklyn and the Dust Bowl were both way more than a stone’s throw from Stratford-upon-Avon: That’s exactly what’s in store when the fest’s fiftieth season commences today, although three Shakespearean stalwarts — Macbeth, Henry VIII and Love’s Labour’s Lost, with a swashbuckling, family-friendly mounting of The Three Musketeers thrown in for good measure — fill out the meaty repertory that splits itself between the University of Colorado at Boulder’s Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre and the indoor University Theatre.

A preview performance of Macbeth starts things off tonight at 8:30 p.m. on the Rippon stage; the aforementioned Guthrie biography, Woody Guthrie’s American Song, debuts at 7:30 p.m. on June 27 in the indoor venue. Individual show tickets range from $7 to $54, (series subscriptions are $64 to $204) and include impromptu pre-show Green Shows, strolls through the Shakespeare Garden and other experiential incidentals. For tickets, information about special events and complete showtimes, visit www.coloradoshakes.org or call 303-492-0554.
June 20-Aug. 16, 2008