As you like it
It was an evening of sheer pleasure that will live in the memory for a long time.
(Andy Boeckstaens, London Jazz News)
Production dates:
13th & 14th October 2014, The Union Chapel
Composer and Conductor Scott Stroman
Poetry William Shakespeare
Director Bernie Moran
Assistant Music Director Sarah Wilkinson
Cast
Orlando Robin Bailey
Rosalind Grace Andrews
Celia Donna Canale
Touchstone Robert Gildon
Jacques Jacques Verzier
As you like it is a musical composed by Scott Stroman and set to Williams Shakespeare's four hundred year old text. The music is a hybrid of jazz and operatic musical idioms, scored for five soloists, chorus and six piece jazz band featuring violin and cello.
HighburyOperaTheatre premièred the work in 2014 at The Union Chapel with a one hundred strong community chorus comprising local singers from Eclectic Voices, Classical VYBeS, Islington Community Chorus, Highbury Youth Choir and Ashmount Primary School. The production included two public performances and a school's performance to 700 Islington primary school children.
As You Like It concerns the story of Orlando and Rosalind. The young would-be lovers are blighted by family feuds and separated by circumstance. Disguised as a man, Rosalind engineers the attention of the love-sick Orlando, resulting eventually in their marriage.
