Thereby Hangs a Tale: As You Like It Opens in Central Park

By Robert Simonson
July 12, 2005

Sweet lovers may love the spring, as Shakespeare says in As You Like It, but lovers of that comedy will have to settle for a summer production that stars Brian Bedford, Jennifer Ikeda, Richard Thomas, James Waterston and Lynn Collins, and opens at the Delacorte Theatre in Central Park on July 12, after previews from June 25.

Featured in staging by The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival are Vanessa Aspillaga, Alec Beard, Kristen Bush, Helmar Augustus Cooper, David Cromwell, Jordan Dean, Gregory Derelian, Jennifer Dundas, Michael Esper, Al Espinosa, Danny Fetter, Herb Foster, Enver Gjokaj, Jocelyn Greene, Brian Henderson, Dale Ho, Chad Hoeppner, André Holland, Steve Kazee, Philip Kerr, John G. Preston, Bob Stillman and Reynaldo Valentin.

Lynn Collins, recently seen in the Al Pacino film version of The Merchant of Venice, will play the lead role of Rosalind. The Texas-born Collins played Portia in the film "Merchant." Trained at Juilliard, she portrayed Ophelia to Liev Schreiber's Hamlet in a production at the Public, and was Juliet in Peter Hall's Romeo and Juliet at the Ahmanson theatre in Los Angeles. She will play Charlotte Bronte in the upcoming film "Bronte."

Bedford, as Jacques, the cynic that tells up of the seven ages of man, is the respected classical actor who has appeared on Broadway to acclaim in Tartuffe, The Moliere Comedies, London Assurance and Two Shakespearean Actors. Thomas was recently on Broadway in Democracy.

The Rivals' Mark Lamos, a Tony nominee for his direction of Our Country's Good, will helm Shakespeare's As You Like It, which will run June 25-July 17.

Two New York Shakespeare Festival productions will be offered this summer at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park: As You Like It and the musical Two Gentlemen of Verona. The stagings will celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Public Theater.