The Keller Timber Creek High School Theatre Department, under the direction of Amanda Brundrett, Paul Raska and Blake Wilson recently presented a stellar performance of Shakespeare’s play, "Taming of the Shrew".

Set in Padua, Italy in the 1500’s, two daughters of a local merchant are the focus of the story.  Shy Bianca is courted by a number of young men, but she cannot marry until her out-spoken older sister Katharine is wed. When Lucentio arrives in Padua he falls in love with Bianca and posing as a servant, gets a job in her house so he can be near her. Petruchio, a land owner comes to Padua shopping for a wife, falls in love with the fiery Katharine and after a furious, combative courtship they marry. Lucentio confesses his true identity to Bianca and the couple decides to marry. At the wedding, Katharine humbled from a new-found wisdom from her honeymoon gives advice to Bianca on how to be a successful wife.

People often look at Shakespearian works as being somewhat intimidating for anyone but a scholar to understand however, the multi-talented troupe members who were cast in this production were both delightful and perfectly natural in their roles, making the often difficult to follow Shakespearean verse sound like believable daily conversation. Couple this with the fabulous set design and colorful costumes, and it was hard to not place oneself into sunny 15th century Italy.  While most adults have possibly seen this work by Shakespeare, it was both amazing and refreshing to see how so many members of the audience, and especially those under the age of 20 enjoyed the production and walked away with a totally new perspective of his work.   

This energetic production, played by a wonderful cast who were able to combine a uncontrolled blend of verbal dexterity and slapstick sending its audiences away smiling, elated, but also a little bit uneasy — which is no less than Shakespeare would have expected!