Shakespeare With a Twist

The inaugural production of the Ojai Young Shakespeare Theater Company will be staged this weekend at Ojai’s Libbey Bowl.

Founded by Ojai resident Lena Frederick, the fledgling company will perform an original version of the bard’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

Frederick, as artistic director, has lifted the story from its ancient Greece setting and given it a contemporary twist. “What Shakespeare wrote about is very relevant to us all even today,” she said. “That relevancy is highlighted when you put it into contemporary dress.” The new-fashioned perspective comes complete with music and dance set in the late 1920s and early ‘30s and includes a Charleston dance and the music of Scott Joplin.

The entire oak tree-filled Libbey Bowl will be used for the production, said Frederick, who is acting drama director at Oak Grove School. “The fairy children open the play with a high-energy, gymnastic dance, and the entire Bowl is intended to be the forest,” she said. Frederick said a cast of 10 children will frolic and swing from the stately oak trees, providing a contrast between the fairy world and the human world.

Although the company’s name suggests that future productions will focus on the works of Shakespeare, this is not so, says Frederick. Watch for future works by Bertolt Brecht, Thornton Wilder and perhaps, Anton Chekov.

The play will open at 7:30 p.m. Friday and continue through Sunday. Tickets, available at the door, are $8 for adults and $5 for children under 12. For more information and reservations, call 646-2389.