Program notes from Love's Labour's Lost director, Brenda DeVita
When my team of designers and I sat down to (re)consider Love’s Labour’s Lost this past fall (as it was originally planned for 2020) we asked ourselves, “Why do this play now?” So much has happened. So many tragic and harrowing circumstances have touched us all that deserve consideration. This question post-pandemic had to be taken seriously. And after long discussion, the simplest and truest answer revealed itself—we need the joy in our lives. Now more than ever. And this play is, at its heart, a story about the fierce pursuit of that joy.
The plot of Love’s Labour’s Lost is very simple. It’s Shakespeare’s version of a romantic comedy, where his unabashed poetic playfulness abounds. The characters on the page are people able to express with unfathomable ease the most complicated of emotions— in rhyme! They love words. They feed on th ideas that are volleyed to them and happily serve up the next dish. Clever and curious, they feel fully expressed when they are creating a world with their wit, and spend their days enjoying an enviable existence of laughter and fun.
But for these young men of wealth and privilege, the world of Navarre which they have created is a kind of beautiful bubble—a sanctuary from the inevitable challenges and realities of the world around them. And through the course of the play, Shakespeare teaches them, and us, that words and wit are not enough. That literature, poetry and language—without struggle, heart and love—is a learning devoid of living.
– Brenda DeVita
Portable Prologues Podcast
Host Orange Schroeder talks to the directors and actors to bring you background information that will make you appreciate each APT performance even more! Listen on Apple Podcast or Spotify! Produced by Buzz Kemper, Audio for the Arts.
Join actors Marcus Truschinski and Phoebe González as they discuss the 2022 American Players Theater production of William Shakespeares’ Love’s Labour’s Lost. Enhance your experience and appreciation by listening to this lively interview before or after your 2022 theater visit to Spring Green, Wisconsin.
Review: Music and Dance lift Love's Labour's Lost, Shakespeare's Rom-Com
See “Love’s Labour’s” for Holly Payne’s gorgeous, 1950s-style costumes. They’re color-matched girl by girl and couple to couple, with wispy wraps and nipped waists and pretty pumps I’d like to steal right off the princess’s feet. - Lindsay Christians, The Cap Times
Review: Talky and Terrific
Artistic Director Brenda DeVita set herself quite a challenge when she decided that Love’s Labour’s Lost would be her first Shakespeare play sitting in the director’s chair. But like this season’s other raucous comedy The Rivals, embroidered and punched up so fantastically by director Aaron Posner, this version of the frequently overlooked Shakespeare play is an unmitigated delight. - Gwendolyn Rice, Isthmus
Season Selects: Love's Labour's Lost
Fast Facts
Playing: Hill Theatre | August 12 – October 2
Featuring: Featuring Sarah Day, Jamal James, Nate Burger, Jeb Burris, David Daniel, Sarah Day, Jamal James, Samantha Newcomb, Melisa Pereyra, James Ridge, Ronald Román-Meléndez, Marcus Truschinski, Triney Sandoval & Jennifer Vosters.
Genre: Shakespeare Comedy / Period Comedy
Go If You Liked: The Comedy of Errors (2016), As You Like It (2018), Twelfth Night (2019)
Last at APT: 2002
Behind the Scenes with Sara Becker & Alys Dickerson
Learn how a professional voice and text session works with APT's Director of Voice and Text, Sara Becker, and APT actor and educator Alys Dickerson.
Credits:
Photos by Liz Lauren