Napa Valley College has an excellent track record with youth-centric, large-scale Broadway musical productions. They’ve done a great job with past productions of such shows as Matilda the Musical and Spring Awakening.
It was inevitable that Jennifer King, Theatre Arts and Film Studies Coordinator at NVC and founder of Shakespeare Napa Valley, would find a way to combine her love for the works of the bard and musical theatre. Tony Award-winner Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery have provided the vehicle with their terrific musical reimagining of Shakespeare’s As You Like It.
Originally developed for New York’s Public Theater, it’s one of the most approachable versions of Shakespeare I’ve seen and is a terrific way to introduce the bard to a younger generation. Shakespeare purists might object, but I dare them not to smile repeatedly at the joyous work being done on stage. How can you not smile at the merging of Shakespeare with Lucha libre?
The plot has all the Shakespeare familiars: feuding families, sibling rivalries, cross-gender masquerades, star-crossed lovers, banishments, a magical forest, reconciliations, and multiple weddings. The details matter not. Everything works out by show’s end.
Director King has a magnificent cast at work here, from the show’s opening number “All the World’s A Stage” featuring musical director Christina Howell to its touching closing song number “Still I Will Love” with the entire cast of somewhere between 50 and 60+ performers on stage (I lost count).
That cast consists of guest performers like Ashley Garlick (Rosalind) and Jonathen Blue (Duke Senior), NVC students, and community members. A different guest choir from the community joins each performance.
The core cast of Gabriel L. Reyes (Orlando), Garlick, Giovanny Perez (Oliver), Ri-Ri Manio (Celia), De Angelo Nodado Cipriano (Touchstone), and Blue all gel and get great support from the ensemble.
The on-stage band under Howell’s direction does a great job with the pop/folk score, and the vocals are well handled by the cast. Garlick and Blue are the show’s predominant voices, but there’s fine vocal work being done throughout the show.
Production values are superb with a clever set (Brian Watson), dynamic lighting (Theo Bridant) and beautiful costuming (Bethany Deal) combining to give this show a unique visual flair.
That flair is enhanced by a level of diversity on stage best exemplified in the grand musical number “In Arden.” By the end of the number, the stage has been filled with dozens of individuals of varying genders, colors, ages, ethnicities, orientations, shapes, sizes, and physical abilities. It’s a beautiful sight and the song’s message of inclusivity makes for a beautiful song.
In a short post-show conversation with director King, she stated that she saw the show as an “antidote” to what’s going on in Washington, DC right now.
I’ll be more blunt.
This version of As You Like It is a big, beautiful “FUCK YOU!” to the anti-DEI crowd running amok in our nation right now.
Thanks to everyone involved for that.
‘As You Like It’ runs through March 30 at the Napa Valley College Performing Arts Center, 2277 Napa Vallejo Hwy, Napa. Fri., 7:00pm; Sat & Sun., 2pm. $15–$25. 707.256.7500. performingartsnapavalley.org.
