The Osprey Arts Centre is presenting a comedy that sends up and honours the best known playwright and poet in the English language. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) is on stage Saturday, Feb. 18 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, Feb. 19 at 2 p.m.
A new local troupe called Blank Slate Theatre will perform the play. Local thespian, musician and teacher Chett Buchanan teams up with Murray Cullen and Georg MacDonald, both of Alberta – Cullen is visiting and MacDonald moved here in 2010 – to act out all of Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets and 37 plays in a frantic hour and change.
Murray Cullen is a Shakespearean actor who has performed in such plays as Much Ado About Nothing and Comedy of Errors. He’s also played the lead in Hamlet. Georg MacDonald founded Katie's Playhouse Community Theatre and was a member of Keyano College Theatre. Among her credits, she performed the lead role in Hello Dolly.
Chett Buchanan is well known locally as a member of Basement Theatre – he had roles in some of Peter Oliver’s best productions including Two and a Half Penny Opera and the Shakespearean take-off A Midsummer's Night on the Boulevard of Broken Dreams. He also performed in Our Town with Schooner Players. He’s also known as a musician and a teacher at Shelburne High School.
Admission is $15 for adults and $5 for students. Tickets are available in the usual ways, at the Whirligig Book Shop (875-1117), through the Osprey’s web site and at the door before the performance. When buying tickets on-line through the Osprey’s website, patrons are asked to remember that there is a charge of $1.50 per ticket to recover costs.
