Let’s Go Out Tonight: Harlem’s Home to the Bard — August 14, 2008
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THEATER
BARD IN HARLEM Riverbank State Park happens to be the uptown home of Harlem Summer Shakespeare, and the park’s renovated amphitheater, overlooking the Hudson River, is the perfect setting for an open-air production of the Bard’s comedy of mistaken identity. For its fourth anniversary, the festival presents the Pulse Ensemble Theatre’s version of “Twelfth Night,” infusing the comedy with rock music and urban themes. In the play, women fall in love with women dressed as men and family members presumed to be dead resurface. Pulse’s artistic director, Alexa Kelly, sets this complicated plot in modern-day New York City, leaving Shakespeare’s language unchanged. Inspired by image-conscious New Yorkers obsessed with their fitness rituals, Ms. Kelly makes Lady Olivia a yoga nut. Duke Orsino is a brooding Led Zeppelin fan, while Andrew Aguecheek and Sir Toby are aging hipsters who can’t seem to leave their Studio 54 days behind. Raushanah Simmons, who plays Viola, returns to Harlem Summer Shakespeare for her second year; the rest of the cast includes R.J. Foster, Brian Richardson, Camille Mazurek, Annie Paul, and Richard Vernon. 8 p.m., Riverbank State Park, Amphitheater, 145th Street at Riverside Drive, 212-695-1596, free.
Khristina Narizhnaya
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