The Globe Illuminated

The historic Globe Theatre of London has been re-created inside the Palmdale Playhouse for this weekend’s fourth annual Shakespeare Festival, which opens tonight with “The Taming of the Shrew.”

“It’s going to be something new for our audience to be so close to the actors,” technical director Tony Moore said. “The actors will seem much larger than life.”

The experience is designed to be just like “the pit” at the Globe during Shakespeare’s time, except the audience will not have to stand, Moore said. The pit was where the common people watched plays while standing and made their opinions known during the show. “The ‘proper’ people were way back in the balcony, sitting quietly on cushioned seats,” he said.

In Shakespeare’s day, there were no scenery changes. Actors performed in richly decorated but permanent settings. Palmdale stage technician Cynthia Rodriguez’s task was to paint wooden pillars that would look “marbled to a high state of illusion.”

This quaint description was found by the stage crew on the Internet, showing details of the reconstruction of the 20-sided Globe Theatre erected in 1997 on the bank of the Thames.

In Palmdale, “The Taming of the Shrew” also will be performed Saturday and Sunday. The festival continues next weekend with special presentations of “An Evening With the Bard” by Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum; “Hamlet” by Colin Cox’s Los Angeles-based Will & Co.; and “Shakespeare’s Sonnets in Performance: Will Will Fulfill” with actors Joyce Meadows and David Sage.

On the final day, actors will perform an encore of a festival favorite from past years, the hilarious “15 Minute Hamlet” by the Palmdale City Players.

The playhouse’s 16th-century atmosphere will be enhanced by authentic costumes by local costumiere April Ray of Daisy’s Costumes, and there will be a Shakespeare memorabilia display with books, posters, etchings, quotation cards and videos.

Before each show, patrons will be entertained by madrigal singers, sonata readers, jugglers and musicians with performances by members of the Society for Creative Anachronism, the Palmdale Youth and Community Choir and the Palmdale Writers Roundtable.

And audience members are encouraged to attend in “historically correct” costumes, theater manager Dea McAllister said.

BE THERE

“Shakespeare Festival,” today through Sunday and April 14-16, Palmdale Playhouse, 38334 10th St. East, Palmdale. Performances are at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays, 2 p.m. Sundays. Children 12 and under $8, seniors, military and students $10, adults $12. Ticket packages are available. Call (661) 267-ARTS.