Doing ‘As You Like It’ Just the Way He Wants

Eric Bryce Wallach, a senior at Chatsworth High School, has learned a lot about theater in the last month while producing and directing “The Curate Shakespeare as You Like It.”

Because the school has no official ties to the production--which opened on its outdoor stage Thursday and plays today, Saturday and Sunday at 5 p.m.--he had to raise the funds, choose the cast, write the press releases, negotiate with school officials and make arrangements for ticket money to go to charity, all while trying to find time to oversee rehearsals.

“I never, never knew how hard all this would be,” Wallach said earlier this week as he squeezed in a quick telephone conversation between rehearsals. He sounded frantic but elated. “I ditched a lot of classes the last couple weeks. It’s been hard, but great.”

Wallach, 18, who has acted in several school productions but never before directed or produced, was chosen by his classmates in the senior play production class to do the play. The class annually puts on a stage production at the end of the school year.

The play, written by Don Nigro, is a contemporary interpretation of the Shakespeare classic. Unlike the original, it’s anything but a comedy. “The Curate Shakespeare” is about a bedraggled acting company that exists in a sort of limbo state, and each member of the small cast has to struggle to come to terms with his or her role.

“What began as torture and humiliation evolves gradually into a kind of triumph,” Wallach wrote in his press release. It’s a message of hope that led him to decide that 75% of the proceeds realized from the play should go to AIDS Project Los Angeles. “I was sick of having productions being done and the money going nowhere meaningful,” he said. “I wanted it to go where it would really do something.”

Admission to the play is on a “pay-what-you-can” basis, although the class is suggesting a $5 donation.

The 25% that doesn’t go to APLA will be used to pay back investors in the show. Wallach said the show will cost about $500 to produce--most of it for sets, costumes and programs; most of it from family, friends and local businesses.

After graduation, Wallach will head for London, to take an acting workshop at the Shakespeare Globe Center.

“I love acting; I love directing; I want to do them both,” Wallach said. And he has learned one lesson above all from doing “The Curate Shakespeare.”

“I learned that I never, never want to produce again.”