Wm. Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” at Hawks Nest State Park Aug. 3, 2012

SOUTH CHARLESTON, W.Va. – An outdoor performance of the William Shakespeare play “As You Like It” will be staged at Hawks Nest State Park on Friday Aug. 3, beginning at 5:45 p.m.  The performance is free and open to the public.  The acting troupe is the Traveling Players Ensemble out of the Washington D.C. area.

Traveling Players Ensemble contacted Hawks Nest State Park just this week asking if the troupe could perform.  Megan Flinn, activities coordinator and naturalist, readily accepted the only open date the troupe had available, Friday, Aug. 3. 

“As You Like It” is a comedy, in which the characters venture into the woods - and return transformed. Faithful cousins and vengeful siblings, wooing lessons and wrestling matches, poetic trees and prosaic sheep, and men, women and women disguised as men all tell this tale of how we find true love (and our true selves) in nature.  The program will run about two hours and include an intermission.  The performance will take place at the Hawks Nest State Park lower park shelter, a CCC structure. Attendees are encouraged to bring seating or a blanket to sit on and to enjoy this outdoor drama as it should be.

The Traveling Players Ensemble is from the Washington D.C. area and is made up of teenage actors and actresses trained in outdoor and classical theater.

“Our teen actors are nationally recognized (by the NEA),” says Jennifer Pommerenke, director of programs for the ensemble.

The Traveling Players Ensemble has toured Skyline Drive, Douthat State Park in VA, Colonial Williamsburg, and Lime Kiln as well as regular appearances at Shenandoah National Park.

For information about Hawks Nest State Park and the “As You Like It” performance, call 304-658-5212.

About the Traveling Players Ensemble

Traveling Players Ensemble (TPE) is a professional theatre company based in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area, with the mission to bring great theatre into the great outdoors.  The programs reflect the very origins of theatre, when troupes of actors roamed the ancient and medieval countryside, relying on the barest props and the boldest imagination to convey their art.  Traveling Players is committed to superior artistic work and innovative arts education, while being aligned with and supported by leaders in the environmental movement.  Traveling Players Ensemble, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.   To learn more about the organization, visit www.travelingplayers.org

Recent Achievements:

• The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) named Traveling Players as a “Summer School in the Arts,” one of 25 organizations in the nation with this distinction. 

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