Much Ado About Something: Hollywood Fringe Festival, 2014
In early 2014, two friends in LA - playwright Megan Kelly and actress Kate Grabau- decided to follow the lead of William Shakespeare, and get together with a bunch of their talented, funny and interesting friends and artistic peers to create something awesome.
And thus the Better Than Shakespeare! theatre company was born, and with it, their first production - Much Ado About Something at the 2014 Hollywood Fringe Festival.
Click here to watch what audiences had to say after the show!
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This is the most gloriously insane and fanatically irreverent production of a Shakespeare play I've ever seen--and that's a very good thing. [Full review]
What a fun show! Shakespeare's comedy gets a new and very modern take on this tale of love with aliens dropping in to stir things up. [Full review]
These guys PLAY! That's the most exciting part of this show is that you can tell the cast is having fun most of the time. [Full review]
There is a sweet madness that this show gives off and a joy that comes from ripping apart Shakespeare and making it a hoot. [Full review]
Tell ya friends. Tell ya neighbors. This is by far my favorite show of Fringe thus far. Yes please, more please. Bravo to Megan Kelly for her brilliant directing/writing prowess! [Full review]
Click here to read ALL the rave reviews from #HFF14!
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The Messenger: Evan Smith
Leonata: Maria Pasquarelli
Don Pedro: Satchel Dennis
Ursula: Connor Kelly-Eiding
Watchman # 1: Madhuri Shekar
Live music by: Greg Nicolett
Assistant Director: Rachel Skytt
Front of house: Zury Ruiz
Written / Directed by: Megan Kelly
Produced by: Kate Williams Grabau, Adam Grabau, Megan Kelly
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THE STORY BEHIND 'MUCH ADO...' IN THEIR OWN WORDS
Much Ado About Something arose from a discussion Kate and I had over coffee back at the first of the year. We had always wanted to work together; we loved Shakespeare; and the previous year, in an especially busy moment, I had said I wanted to direct her in As You Like It, at some point. So over coffee, Kate called me out. “Let’s do it for the Fringe this year.” And I laughed, and nodded, and pretended to agree to it. And I kept pretending, so much so that I found myself saying, “As You Like It is too hard. What about Much Ado?” Pretty immediately — and both of us still pretending at this point — the discussion turned to how to make Shakespeare Fringe appropriate. We wouldn’t have very much money. Shakespeare is always done. Much Ado is always done. What could we offer a Fringe audience?
We played around with the title. If all these romantic shenanigans were Nothing, wouldn’t it be funny if Something was actually going on in the background. My brilliant first idea was that the house was on fire. Not a sustainable or interesting option, but the sentiment stuck. What is the fire? Who is the Chicken Little?
That’s what Much Ado About Something is. Chicken Little, with aliens. While Claudio woos Hero, Beatrice and Benedick argue, and Don John schemes, aliens infiltrate, transform, and enslave citizens of Messina. And only the Messenger knows it, but no one will listen to him — he’s just the Messenger!
The story preceded the theatre company. We created the Better than Shakespeare! Theatre Company, and enlisted some of our most talented and funny friends to create a collaborative space to figure out how best to tell this story. What we’ve achieved is something pretty silly — part homage to mid-century alien invasion B-movies, part Shakespeare in-joke, part whatever makes us laugh. Part one wild instrument called a Theremin.
So the show is for audience members who want to play along, who like Shakespeare characters at their stupidest and most outlandish and self-involved, or who want an easy (and inaccurate) introduction to Much Ado. The whole thing feels very Shakespeare-y to us. He liked his wild subplot, his secret take-over, his large-scale war. But we’re really just doing the show for the fun of it, and hope people come for the fun of it.
After we realized that our joke had somehow gained enough steam to become a production, it became important to me to develop a set of core values. When we were initially talking about Much Ado, we were focusing on the character of Beatrice: witty, intelligent, independent. In an Elizabethan counter cultural twist, she does not define herself by the love or attention of a man. Marriage isn't her main objective, and it is not love for a man, but love for her cousin that is her driving force. She is, without a doubt, one of Shakespeare's best female characters.
Hero, on the other hand, doesn’t have a lot of agency. In fact, she has none. Is there a way to reconcile these two female characters? We’re not sure. But this alien subplot gave us the chance to playfully explore what this story reflects about our world.
The play is cast with gender-bent roles, blind to race, ability, or sexual orientation, and outside of time or location - which is something that will hold true to all of our future shows. Because as the good Bard says, we want to "hold a mirror up to nature." It's also important to us that we are an ensemble, and all engage in the collaborative process. Most of our company attended the The USC School of Dramatic Arts MFA program, where we valued collaboration, and learned the true power of being part of a "pack." We know that every single person in the room knows or understands something that we don't. So we respect, and value everyone's individual voice, as well as "the power of the pack."
We're so excited to share our first production with LA. I'm amazing that we conceived, wrote, and produced this show in this incredibly short time span. But that's what happens when you engage people who love an adventure, are passionate about live theatre, always willing to play, and are so ridiculously talented!
As for the name - "Better Than Shakespeare!” Well, no we're not actually better than Shakespeare. But we are definitely a lot of fun.
We are kind of better than Shakespeare.
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