Much Ado About Nothing

In this remarkably modern comedy, dazzling language becomes a mediating force between the fusty conventions of love and marriage and the complexities of extraordinarily intelligent and worldly-wise people. In Shakespeare’s stinging and thoughtful comedy of wit, victorious soldiers returning from war set their sights on the peacetime pleasures of clever banter and romance in a jaunty world of aristocratic artifice. However, when false information leads one proud nobleman to cruelly denounce his beloved on their wedding day, the verbal sparring sours into private warfare.

The production will be set in just before World War I in Sicily – a patriarchal, Catholic society in which tradition and social ritual were central components of daily life. A maid’s chastity and a man’s honor were of the utmost importance. It was a moment in history when the entire world was on the brink of a new era.