LAST WEEKEND
Fri/Sat
8/10 & 8/11,
5:30 pm

Sun 8/12, 2 pm

Syracuse Shakespeare-In-The-Park 's, “Kids Doing Shakespeare,” (KIDS) was a ton of fun and learning for 13 students in grades 5 thru 12.   

Rookies and returning students were taught together in Thornden Park’s Carriage House in cooperation with the Syracuse Parks, Recreation & Youth Programs Dept. and the John Ben Snow Foundation.  

This exciting programming mix of speaking skills, stage techniques, costume design, set painting, Renaissance music & dance  and English country dance had our best sets ever thanks to an extremely talented group and the magical genius of Dr. Weeks art teacher Steve Orlando.  

All students participated in one of the two chosen scenes, as a culminating activity for family, friends & the public, on the last Friday of our intensive (but fun) theatre week. 

The scenes included the one where Falstaff hides in a laundry basket to escape detection by Mistress Ford's husband, selected from our 2018 main stage SSITP production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, Aug. 3-12th, in Thornden Park's beautiful Amphitheatre, and the scene where he is "pinched" with burning tapers by fairies in the local Park's forest.

Great Production! • Anastasia and Tatiana Friar did wonderful! • Excellent talent • Love having these in the Amphitheater! • Great show. Brought back memories of my school play 10 years ago. Appreciate the performance making it accessible to everyone • Great show, do more! • Well done indeed! • We always love coming to your shows! • First time, really appreciated • This is our first Shakespeare in the park; it won’t be our last. Wonderful venue, lovely day. Really appreciated the synopsis as it’s been a long time since 10th grade! • Great job! • Keeps getting better! Thank you!! • Excellent performance! Most enjoyable! • Always an enjoyable show. So glad you keep Shakespeare Alive! And “free” is great! • Excellent • Thanks for this gift to the community • Amazing! • I loved the use of the entire amphitheater. The actors were astounding. • Excellent, as always, a pleasure • Very good • Great. Thank you! • I really enjoyed it! Keep doing your thing! • Lovely event! • I loved it • Casca, Decius Brutus and Brutus were fantastic! Amazing show! One of the best afternoons I have ever spent, thank you! • Loved all of it! • Thank you for a magnificent program! We were so impressed with the quality of the performance and appreciated the amount of information in the print material. • We appreciate the opportunity to see these plays in this location. Thank you. • Very good production! • Well done! Thank you! • We always enjoy your shows. Love how you use the whole space. • Amazing costumes, acting and sound. Thank you for the great afternoon. • Wow! Great acting! Liked the way cast used the landscape of amphitheater. • Loved the show, especially the music! • Fun! • Very good. • Excellent! • Amazing actors to learn all their speeches! • Loved the enthusiasm of the players. Soliloquies were properly paced. Love the stage moved forward. • Well done! Especially appreciated the genuine ideal quality of some actors. Conveyed another so effectively and movingly. • Excellent music and trumpet and background crowd scenes recordings. • Very good! The actors were great! • We loved it our first time here and we enjoyed ourselves. We will come again. • Excellent show. • Amazing show, loved it. • Good work in casting people representing all ages and colors. Cutting of script served the production well. Main characters were strong, particularly well. • Marc Antony and Cassius were especially wonderful. • It was well done. • Appreciate the synopsis. •

Julius Caesar attracted an audience of 410+ people on Sunday, 6/10/18, the second largest one day audience for our June SSITP show topped only by the 425 people who came to see Henry IV, Part 1 in June 2012

Merry Wives of Windsor is Shakespeare's only play set entirely within the Bard's native England.  It has been said that Queen Elizabeth "commissioned" Shakespeare to write a play containing the Falstaff character in love.