As You Like It Leaves the Audience in Love

There is something different about the latest show at the EmilyAnn Theatre & Gardens. Shakespeare’s comedy, As You Like It, is enacted by a cast of professional actors. Considering how the play resolves, it is fitting that a couple of married couples are involved in the making of this production. One of those couples is the co-directing team of Beth James and Luke Jenkins. Their direction is sure to please the Shakespearean purist. The other dynamic duo is the theatre’s Artistic Director and lead actress, Bridget Gates, who plays Rosalind, and the dour “Jacques,” well-characterized by Kevin Gates with a kind of melancholia that would almost please Hamlet.

Of course, the cast of fifteen performs with the level of professionalism that one might expect from their years of collective acting experience, but several performances stood out from the rest. Being best friends on and off the stage, Bridget and Jessica Allen, who plays Cecilia, brings a real genuineness to the close relationship between the two runaways. Nate Nelson portrays the love-struck Orlando, who painfully pines after Rosalind, as if Nelson, himself, had been in that exact situation. Mitchell Oden and his on-stage antics are entirely entertaining in the role of court jester, Touchstone. The wrestling match between Orlando and Charles, played by Fischer McIntosh, made a very young child in the audience giggle with pure delight. At play’s end, one can certainly say, “All’s well that ends well.”

As You Like It runs on weekends from Friday, September 13 through Sunday, September 29. Show times are Fridays and Saturdays at 7:30 p.m., and Sunday matinees at 2:00 p.m. Seating in the Burdine Johnson Indoor Theatre is limited. Tickets are available at the door or on-line at www.emilyann.org. Call (512) 847-6969 for more information. The EmilyAnn Theatre & Gardens is located at 1101 FM 2325 in Wimberley.