Montana Shakespeare in the Parks to Perform Nature-Themed Comedy ‘As You Like It’ in Kalispell

As Montana Shakespeare in the Parks passes the halfway mark on its 78-show summer season, the touring theater group is scheduled to appear in Kalispell this Thursday at Woodland Park for a performance of the comedy “As You Like It.”

In broad strokes, William Shakespeare’s “As You Like It,” is a play about a group of people who have taken to the forest to find refuge from court life. It’s there, in the woods, that they embark on a somewhat mystifying journey of love and self-discovery. The comedy’s emphasis on nature is one that the theater group thinks will especially resound with Montana audiences.

This summer is the first time Montana Shakespeare in the Parks has performed “As You Like It” as part of its free summer tour since 2014, and the sixth time since it began traversing the state in 1973.

“As actors performing it specifically in Montana, it feels like it was made for it,” said Sam Cheeseman, who doubles as the tour’s manager and a member of the cast.

Before the tour ever takes off, a group of almost 60 professionals from around the country work in Bozeman from early May to mid-June to build sets and costumes and take on other production-related tasks. From there, the cast travels across the state (and into Idaho and Washington), bringing with them everything they need to put on stage productions of Shakespeare from Sidney, Montana to Liberty Lake, Washington. It requires that the 11 cast members work in blocks of seven to 11 days straight.

Cheeseman said that each performance they hope to create a space where people can simply spend time together. That means people can come and sit intently, hanging on every line. Or they can play cards, or doze off in a hammock, as they listen to the words.

Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ annual operating budget comes from individual donations, sponsorships, and both grant and foundation support. With some of its federal and state funding recently being frozen, the theater group is relying increasingly on donations — in the form of cash, checks, and even QR code-driven online donations — from people that come to the free shows. People can also support the tour by purchasing tTshirts and stickers. Montana Shakespeare in the Parks’ mission, according to its website, is “to engage and enrich both rural and underserved communities” through Shakespeare, other classics and educational outreach.

Speaking by phone earlier this week, Cheeseman said the cast was in the process of building its latest set in Conrad. It’s a task that can take from two to three hours to set up, and then another couple of hours to tear down. One Shakespeare in the Parks staffer said there’s a joke that “actors are hired as construction workers that are going to do a play each day.”

That seemed to line up with Cheeseman’s view of the way the cast takes on roles on and off the stage. It’s Cheeseman’s third year on the tour, and so he’s had a hand in helping new cast members know what to expect.

“We try to make them as aware as possible that the acting portion of the job most days is gonna feel like your break during the day, when you just get to be an actor and be on stage. That’s when you kind of just start enjoying the work you’ve already put in,” Cheeseman said, adding, “It’s really about building a crew of pirates more than it is building a group of actors.”

The cast has taken to jokingly calling it the “Cursed Tour, Best Tour,” because of the number of hiccups, from vehicle breakdowns to unpredictable weather, that they’ve run into. Despite those challenges, the troupe has performed every day it was supposed to, and Cheeseman said the audiences have been engaged, excited and positive as the tour has progressed. In Helena, for example, an estimated 800 people came out each night.

Shakespeare “wrote a ton about nature in all of his plays, but ‘As You Like It’ is the one where the transformative power of nature is really focused on,” said Riley O’Toole, the associate artistic director for Montana Shakespeare in the Parks.

But “As You Like It” is just one half of the summer tour, with the cast alternating its performances of the comedy with performances of “Henry V,” which is set during the Hundred Years War both before and after the Battle of Agincourt. After the stop in Kalispell the tour will head up to Eureka for an Aug. 15  performance of “Henry V” at the Historical Village on Dewey Avenue. From there, they’ll head to Libby for an Aug. 16 performance of “As You Like It” at Libby Elementary School.

O’Toole said that because of Montana’s high number of veterans per capita, and what he sees as residents’ strong connection to service, “Henry V” is another production that has landed with audiences. As one of Shakespeare’s more famous plays, O’Toole noted “Henry V” has been adapted over the years by the likes of the actor and director Laurence Olivier and the director Kenneth Brannagh.

“Everyone has their own interpretation through time, whether it is to be very pro-war, or anti-war. Regardless, the play is about the cost of war,” he said.

For O’Toole, part of what makes Shakespeare’s work so special is the way in which its ancient origins can still reflect the struggles and concerns of the modern world.

“One of my favorite quotes about Shakespeare is that the goal is not to change things to make them relevant and continue reinventing these stories. The point is to remind us we are ancient, and for 400 years these plays have continued to be produced and connected with audiences because of their continued relevance,” O’Toole said. “The things we all share, our struggles our triumphs, everything that it means to be human, brings us together to witness these plays, not only with each other, but with everybody who appreciated these plays within the past 400 years.”

That enduring connection is part of how the theater group is able to maintain Shakespeare’s original language for their adaptations. The edits they do make are intended to make the plays fit into a two-hour window because of the tour’s reliance on daylight. As O’Toole joked, if the plays are longer than two hours, suddenly it’s “Shakespeare in the Dark.”

Montana Shakespeare in the Parks take some other creative liberties to make the plays even more entertaining. In “As You Like It,” for example, the musical talents of the cast have allowed for some speeches to be turned into songs. As for “Henry V,” they’ve made use of executive artistic director Kevin Asselin’s expertise as a fight director to incorporate a broadsword melee at the end of the play.

“One of greatest compliments we can ever receive is that people understood the story,” Cheeseman said. “That’s our number one goal, is to make the story clear. And we have an amazing design team that helps with costumes and the set and sound design and all of that.”

Cheeseman noted, too, that the dialogue was not meant to be a facsimile for how people talked at the time, but was written as poetry. It helps, too, to get to see it and hear it, instead of just reading it.

Cheeseman likens it to being in a dark room. “You’ve just got to give your eyes a minute to adjust. It’s the same way when you see a Shakespeare play. Give it time.”

After a recent performance in Great Falls, some people came up to the cast to ask how many of the words were changed to make it sound more modern. The answer was simple, Cheeseman said, “None.”

Montana Shakespeare in the Parks will perform “As You Like It” Thursday, Aug. 14 at 6 p.m. at Woodland Park in Kalispell. On Friday, Aug. 15, the group will perform “Henry V” at 6 p.m. at the Historical Village in Eureka. On Saturday, Aug. 16, at 6 p.m. they will perform “As You Like It” in Libby at Libby Elementary School. The tour will also make an Aug. 25 stop in Polson for a performance of “Henry V” at the Polson Fairgrounds Amphitheater.

For more information go to https://shakespeareintheparks.org/.

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Correction: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the date of the Kalispell performance of “As You Like It.” The play will be performed Thursday, Aug. 14. The story has been updated to reflect the correct date of the performance.