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If you visited Highland Park this past Saturday afternoon, right across Reservoir Drive from the Super Playground you might have stumbled across what looked like a lively picnic set to a live soundtrack of Shakespearean verse.
That would have been Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks, under the shade trees, rehearsing its new production of “Twelfth Night.” The premise of Shakespeare’s beloved comedy involves an island shipwreck. PSIP has costumed it as a tropical party-slash-beach romp, complete with pool noodles, water guns and a picnic cooler-full of Jimmy Buffett songs, sung live by the actors.
“Twelfth Night” will get 11 free outdoor performances in four City of Pittsburgh parks, from Sat., Aug. 31, through Sept. 29.
In PSIP’s 20th season, the show is an especially colorful reminder of founder and artistic director Jennifer Tober’s mission to make Shakespeare as accessible as possible: free daytime shows in parks around town, with contemporary pop culture tie-ins to assist anyone a bit at sea with Elizabethan dialogue.
Tober launched PSIP in 2005, shortly after moving here from New York City, where she’d done Shakespeare outdoors, with various troupes, from the Bronx to the Hudson Valley. She felt Pittsburgh needed something to fill the gap left by the University of Pittsburgh’s long-running Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival, which shut down in 1995.
PSIP’s inaugural production was “As You Like It” in Frick Park, and Tober remained enthused even after one performance was dusted by November snowflakes.
“This is just a part of who I am,” she says. “This needs to happen.”
Later years’ productions were staged in September. These days, individual performances can draw 300 or more patrons, for an average about 2,000 for each production’s run, says Tober, who by day is education director for Quantum Theatre. PSIP remains funded by grants and individual donations (some of them via events like its upcoming annual fundraising dinner, Oct. 1 at Mad Mex Shadyside).
“Twelfth Night” is among Shakespeare’s most produced plays, and has perhaps grown only more popular for its avant le lettre portrayals of gender fluidity and same-sex attraction. The plot turns on a love triangle in which the shipwrecked Viola poses as a young man named Cesario to serve the Duke of Orsino, and ends up the object of affection of the Duke’s own crush, the widow Olivia.
As Viola tells Orsino in Act II, “My father had a daughter loved a man / As it might be perhaps, were I a woman / I should your lordship.”
But also: beach balls. Mirrored shades. Swimsuits. Which is why several cast members will tote acoustic guitars and accent the narrative with such Buffett faves as “A Love Song (Why Don’t We Get Drunk),” “Margaritaville” and “Son of a Sailor,” plus non-Buffett tunes including Jason Mraz’s “I’m Yours” and Rupert Holmes’ inevitable “Escape (The Piña Colada Song).”
“I think a lot of people say, ‘Jimmy Buffet and Shakespeare? That won’t work!’” says Tober. “And then they see our show and hopefully, say, ‘Oh that does work, and it’s fun.’”
Nick Hrutkay directs a cast including Catherine Baird as Viola, Aaron Crutchfield as Orsino, and Harper York as Olivia. Tober herself plays one of Shakespeare’s celebrated clowns, Andrew Aguecheek, with Colin Villacorte as the jester Feste, Bob Colbert as the bibulous Sir Toby Belch, and Joanna Getting as the love-addled heavy, Malvolio.
The first weekend of performances is in Highland Park, with shows at noon daily Sat., Aug. 31, and Sun., Sept. 1, and 2 p.m. Sept. 7 and 8.
The following week, the scene moves to Schenley Plaza for a 6 p.m. twilight show on Fri., Sept. 13. The other shows that weekend are Sept. 14 and 15, at Westinghouse Park.
And for the final two weekends, PSIP returns to its home base in Frick Park for 2 p.m. performances Sept. 21, 22, 28 and 29.
The show runs about two hours. More information is here.
