The Ursinus College Theater Department presents Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing Oct. 2 – 5 at 7:30 p.m. in the Lenfest Theater in the Kaleidoscope Performing Arts Center.
Tickets are $5 general admission and $2 students and senior citizens. A new, easy reservation system is at www.ursinus.edu/tickets
Professor of Theater Domenick Scudera, who received rave reviews for directing this play for the Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater last year, now directs Ursinus actors in a reconceived staging specifically for the Collegeville audience. Scudera was given an honorable mention critics’ award as one of the best directors from this past year’s Philadelphia theater season through the Phindie organization, based on recommendations from Philadelphia theater writers.
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Much Ado About Nothing is a comedic play that combines hilarity with serious themes of honor and shame. It chronicles two couples, Benedick and Beatrice, and Claudio and Hero, the first trading barbs in a merry war of the sexes, whose growing affection is portrayed with humor and compassion.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Jim Rutter called Scudera’s Philadelphia production a “fresh, exuberant production” that “illuminates the Bard’s theme with a fullness and flourish.”
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The review goes on to say, “Domenick Scudera’s brilliant direction elucidates the duality between earnestness and fear, tenderness and the urge for self-preservation,” and cites Scudera’s success in maximizing and balancing the impact “between the lighthearted and darker elements of the text.”
Scudera has been on the theater faculty at Ursinus since 1999. He holds a B.A. from Colgate University and an M.F.A. from Penn State. He also has directed plays for Delaware Theater Company and the Philadelphia Fringe Festival, and is the author of several plays and one-man shows performed in many national venues. Domenick and his dogs, Festus and Cyrus, volunteer in pet therapy programs for several hospitals in the Philadelphia area each week.
