ROCK HILL, SOUTH CAROLINA -- How do you solve a problem like Katherine the Cursed?
Shakespeare Carolina will count the ways in its wrestling-infused updated production of “The Taming of the Shrew,” opening Aug. 18 at 8 p.m. in the Winthrop University Amphitheatre.
Lucentio (Andrew Nelson White, Fort Mill) arrives in the city of Padua and instantly falls for the lovely Bianca Minola (Lauren Roberts, Charlotte). There are just two problems: 1. Gremio (Charlotte resident Robert Brafford) and Hortensio (Kevin Aoussou, Pineville) are already courting Bianca; and 2. Bianca’s father has forbidden her to date until her older sister, the vicious and ill-tempered Katherine, is married.
Gremio and Hortensio quickly launch a plan to marry off Katherine so they may freely compete for fair Bianca’s love. But the plot thickens, as Shakespeare’s plots always do, when Lucentio also decides to compete for her love with a plan sure to backfire: his friend will pretend to be Lucentio, while Lucentio disguises himself as someone else and woos Bianca behind her father’s back.
But all of the suitors’ outlandish plots may fail once the handsome Petruchio (Charlotte resident Charles Jones) sets his eyes on Katherine.
Show times are 8 p.m. Aug. 18-21 and Aug. 25-28. Tickets are $2 with a DSU Welcome Week pass and $5 for general admission. Tickets can bepurchased in advance online at shakescar.org.
Shakespeare Carolina has produced theatre in the Carolinas since the late 1990s. The group brings Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew” to Winthrop Aug. 18-21 and 25-28. Past productions at Winthrop include “Much Ado About Nothing,” “The Tempest,” “Antigone,” “Hamlet,” “Two Gentlemen of Verona,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Merry Wives of Windsor” and “The Servant of Two Masters.” They also have performed in The Duke Energy Theatre in Charlotte as a Resident Company and the Charlotte Fringe Festival.
For more information, contact Chris O’Neill, managing artistic director for Shakespeare Carolina, at shakescar@gmail.com.
