Bard to Go performs as ArtPrize entry

In conjunction with the 2014 Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival, Bard to Go returns with an all-new production, Lights, Camera, Action!, as an official ArtPrize entry for the first time ever.

This year’s new 50-minute interactive Shakespearean collage follows William Shakespeare on an adventure to modern-day Hollywood, where movie studio producers work to convince him to update his plays for modern-day audiences. Will Shakespeare’s plays now include vampires, light saber fights and reality TV bits? Lights, Camera, Action! features scenes from "The Tempest," "The Taming of the Shrew," "Macbeth," "Romeo and Juliet," "The Merry Wives of Windsor," and "A Midsummer Night’s Dream."

ArtPrize Performances
September 27 and 28, various times
Eberhard Center near Blue Pedestrian Bridge, Pew Grand Rapids Campus
To vote for Bard to Go, use the voting code: 57604.
ArtPrize performances will be snippets from the full-length production. Full performance can be seen on November 1.

Bard to Go Performance and Festival Student Competition Awards Ceremony
November 1 at 1 p.m.
Loosemore Auditorium, DeVos Center, Pew Grand Rapids Campus
Immediately preceding this public and full performance of Bard to Go: Lights, Camera, Action! will be an awards ceremony showcasing the winners of the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival Annual Student Competition. The student competition features Grand Valley student entries in literary, visual and performing arts.

Bard to Go, part of the educational outreach program incorporated into the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival, is comprised of six Grand Valley students and a student stage manager. The primary goal of Bard to Go is to reinvigorate Shakespeare’s work for younger audiences by touring eight local secondary schools during the Shakespeare Festival in the fall each year.

“Our goal when we started Bard to Go was never to take a fully formed, highly produced show into the schools,” said Karen Libman, Bard to Go director and theater professor. ”It was always to give students an opportunity to see Shakespeare in a fresh and vital way and then we hope that the teachers take it to the next level.”

In its 14-year history, Bard to Go has given more than 13,000 students throughout Michigan an opportunity to experience Shakespeare. The group has also traveled around the world to perform in Italy, the Czech Republic, the Bahamas, China, Canada and many other locations.

For more information about the Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival, visit www.gvsu.edu/shakes.