I saw As You Like It as a participating production for KCACTF Region 2.

This production did some interesting work in terms of gender bending. The wicked duke was a female actor in a dress, but with a mustache–sort of gender nonbinary, I guess. Touchstone had half of their costume as a female and half male, with the actor turning to present the different sides to the audience, including doing a different voice for the masculine and feminine natures of the fool.

They also did some interesting work in terms of lighting and set–they had this big spiderwebby thing across most of the stage that acted a bit like a scrim in terms of being nearly transparent when lit from behind, but nearly opaque lit from the front. When Rosalind and Celia disguised themselves, we could see them–sort of–behind the scrim, changing.

I loved what they did for the poems Orlando leaves all over the trees. They had a series of flags on a string, like prayer flags, that they stretched across the stage. Each flag had a letter cut out of it, to spell out R-O-S-A-L-I-N-D. It was so corny, but this is the right play for it. Hilarious.

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