December 7, 2017
At the PIT: New (Very Funny) Plays Shakespeare Should Have Written
Don’t miss the “As You Will” troupe at the People’s Improv Theatre. It starts with a suggestion from the audience: A title of a play Shakespeare didn’t write. Then the roller coaster starts, and you’re on a 45-minute impromptu dialog, much of it in iambic pentameter, that miraculously becomes a complete play. As the actors point out, their play, completely improvised, “Is being performed for the first and very last time anywhere.”
The three improv artists, David Brummer, Gerorge Hider, and Conor D. Mullen are experienced actors, who met while students at Skidmore. They energetically bring new Shakespeare works to life with bawdy humor and gymnastic wordplay, injecting the performance with hysterical “Historical Footnotes” that savage academics, Shakespeare, and themselves, equally. This is not Brit Lit 101. As the troupe’s website proclaims, “The players of As You Will invite you to a show where we will bring to life all the plays and poetry the immortal bard would have written if he hadn’t gone and died.”
We caught up with the show this past Sunday, when the group played A Midsummer Night’s Dream Nightmare to a full house howling with laughter and cheering the actors on. Don’t miss the troupe when it returns in its new regular spot at 7PM on the first Sunday of each month.
Whether you are an Improv fan, a fan of Shakespeare (you don’t have to be), or just love a great laugh and a terrific way to spend Sunday evening with a date or friends, this is a sure-fire bet. Check out the other PITS offerings too. The crowd gathered in the bar Sunday night waiting for a range of shows was huge and fun.
AS YOU WILL
At 7PM the First Sunday of Each Month
The People’s Improv Theatre (The PIT)
123 East 24th Street (between Park Ave South and Lexington Avenue)
New York, NY 10010
(212) 563-7488