One of Shakespeare’s earliest and boldest comedies graces Atlanta’s premier stage for works by the Bard. “Love’s Labour’s Lost” is playing this Thanksgiving weekend at The Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse, presented by a cast composed entirely of teenage actors from the Atlanta Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare Intensive for Teens program, or SIT. Adam King is the education programs producer for Atlanta Shakespeare Company, and he joined “City Lights” host Lois Reitzes via Zoom along with actor Aves Lewis to talk about this unusual comedy and the unique charm its cast will bring this weekend.
King described this demanding student program, genuinely worthy of the term “intensive:” “They’re working for four weeks, 9-4 each day…. In the mornings, we’re working on monologue work, doing workshops and masterclasses and stuff like that. Then in the afternoon, we rehearse a full-length Shakespeare play, that usually, in normal years, they get to perform for three nights at the end as a celebratory end of the program,” said King.
Due to COVID restrictions, the young actors this year were limited to a single night’s performance. However, Atlanta Shakespeare Company’s Artistic Director Jeffrey Watkins happened to catch the show and was so impressed; he booked the cast for this weekend’s special encore. “[Jim] has seen so many Shakespeare plays. For him to feel passionately about bringing it back… is a special thing,” said King. “We have just been really lucky to have some of the most talented, capable young people come and be gravitated to what we do at the Shakespeare Tavern.”
Actor Lewis has trained and performed with SIT over the last three summers. “I just really connect to Shakespeare’s work just because of the way that Shakespeare Tavern does it,” they said. “They make it so timeless, and they make it connect to the audience in the times that we’re doing it in. One of the most fun parts is reading the text with your directors and your castmates and seeing which lines you can fit and change to make it funny today. Like, using humor the way we would use today and reading the lines in a different way, it’s really exciting.”
The chosen play seems to provide ample opportunities for creative interpretation. King shared a synopsis: “’Love’s Labour’s Lost’ is the story… of four young noblemen who decide that they are going to study for three years, and to be able to do that, they’re going to cut out all distractions, including women. They’re not going to allow any women into their court at all,” said King. “And what do you know it, the Princess of France and her train of young women come into their courts and disrupt that plan.”
