EDWARDSVILLE - Edwardsville’s Park and Recreation Department will continue their Arts in the Park series this week with a free performance of Shakespeare’s comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor,” produced by the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival.
The show will run from 6:30–8 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 2 at City Park, located at 101 South Buchanan Street. Families are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, blankets and snacks.
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“[The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival] definitely does a really good job of breaking it down for the audience and giving a good synopsis and kind of explaining as the plot goes along, which is really entertaining and super helpful for young kids in the audience, and even adults, like myself, in the audience that don’t always fully comprehend that language,” said Grace Pellock, the special events and marketing coordinator with the Edwardsville Parks and Recreation Department.
The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival produces a Shakespeare show in the city every summer. The company then performs in local parks throughout the month of August, and every performance is free.
“We’re super grateful that they are able to come to us and our community is able to come and enjoy the show,” Pellock added. “It’s really great, and to offer it for free, it’s not every day that you get to go to a show that’s free. Most of that has a bit of a price tag. So we’re really thankful, and it’s so important to expose young kids and just our community to this kind of art form.”
Shakespeare’s comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor” is directed by Suki Peters and condensed to 90 minutes. It tells the story of a knight who decides he will woo two married women as a solution to his financial woes. The St. Louis Shakespeare Festival production has six “hilarious” actors who perform in a “90’s sitcom style,” according to their official website.
This performance is sponsored by the Edwardsville Parks and Recreation Department as a part of their Arts in the Park summer series, which has included movie nights, art classes and music by the Edwardsville Symphony, all for free. For more information about Arts in the Park, including a list of upcoming activities through September, visit the program’s webpage.
“The beautiful thing about this series is that it’s all free. It’s just all about exposing our community and giving them things to do and exposing kids and our community to different art that’s local, which is really special,” Pellock explained. “Especially after the pandemic where everybody was locked up for so long, it’s important that we do things like this…We’re so grateful that we’re able to do this now and enjoy the art as it’s supposed to be enjoyed — in-person and together.”
To stay updated with the Edwardsville Parks and Recreation department, visit their website or Facebook page. For more information about the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival performance on Aug. 2, check out the official Facebook event.
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