Theater Company at Hubbard Hall to Stage As You Like It July 17

The Theater Company at Hubbard Hall (TCHH) will present Shakespeare's enchanting, pastoral comedy As You Like It as its seventh annual free summer touring production at 7 p.m. Monday, July 17, in front of the pond on the South Park lawn of the Skidmore campus.

The live outdoor production is free and open to the public.

As You Like It is considered by many to be one of Shakespeare's greatest comedies, and the heroine, Rosalind, is praised as one of his most inspiring characters (and has more lines than any other of Shakespeare's female characters). Rosalind, the daughter of a banished duke, falls in love with Orlando, the disinherited son of one of the duke's friends. When she is exiled from the court by her usurping uncle, Duke Frederick, Rosalind switches genders and as Ganymede travels with her loyal cousin Celia and the jester Touchstone to the Forest of Arden, where her father and his friends live in exile. Observations on life and love follow (most made by the self-styled philosopher Jaques), friends are made, and families are reunited.

TCHH artistic director Kevin McGuire directs the production, which features company members Sarah Strasser and Michael Maloney as Rosalind and Orlando, Mariah Sanford-White as Celia, Allen McCullough as Jaques, and Ben Scurria as Touchstone.

Audience members are encouraged to bring blankets and folding chairs to enjoy a beguiling evening of outdoor Shakespeare that will be fun for the entire family.

Hubbard Hall is an 1878 rural opera house located at 25 E. Main Street in historic Cambridge, N.Y. For information, visit Hubbard Hall's web site.