CTLC presents: Shakespeare's Twelfth Night

As I previously mentioned, some of us have formed a small theater troupe and have been preparing (inconsistently) since November to perform Twelfth Night.  The days have finally come!  We opened last week for a middle school to great reception, and followed up on the weekend with two public performances.  The Saturday night show was packed, the Sunday matinee a little less so, but it was a blast and people have reviewed it with enjoyment.  After several set backs, including issues with custom tailored costumes and a key actor having to drop out at the last minute, the show has gone on.  Our final performance is tonight for an English festival which will supposedly have a couple thousand people, so fingers crossed!

This was my first experience ever with acting and my character --Olivia -- was fairly central to the play.  It was a lot of fun.  Not sure, actually positive, that acting is not in my general future but I think I've held my own and as one of the directors told me, I wasn't the worst he'd ever seen.  I took that as a great compliment.

The plot line is roughly summed up as follows:  Twins, a boy and a girl, are separated in a storm at sea and think each other dead.  The girl comes on shore, for some reason dresses as a man, and is employed by a duke.  The duke is in love with the lady Olivia and sends his new assistant to try to woo her for him.  The lady dislikes the duke but takes a liking to the "boy".  To add to this, her servant is also in love with her and through a prank pulled by other characters believes she loves him to, and makes advances wearing yellow tights and inviting her to bed.  And on top of that, her uncle is a drunk and has an equally foolish friend who is also in love with Olivia.  And of course there is a fool (who in Shakespeare is always one of the most clever characters) who wanders around enabling mischief.  At the end, the brother twin shows up and it is revealed that the "boy" employed by the duke is the twin sister.  The duke and the sister are engaged, and Olivia and the twin brother are engaged.
Some pictures:

Olivia and Viola/Cesario

The suitors

The fool, the clown, and the drunk

Olivia and servants

Duke Orsino and Viola/Cesario

Malvolio's yellow stockings

Middle school audience

Beginnings of the prank on Malvolio

Furthering the prank on Malvolio

Yellow stockings?!

Fight scene between suitors

Saturday's audience