The cast of Chautauqua Theater Company’s New Play Workshop: As You Like It participate in a table reading Monday in Roe Green Theater Center.
SOPHIA ROOKSBERRY
Staff Writer
At 2 p.m. today, a garden of music stands will become the Forest of Arden in Chautauqua Theater Company’s final New Play Workshop of the summer. As You Like It follows the banished Rosalind as she flees to the woods, disguises herself as a young man and puts the affection of her star-crossed lover to the test. To accompany the ensuing chaos, Bandits on the Run composed almost a dozen songs for one of Shakespeare’s classic comedies.
The musical adaptation of As You Like It began as Peter Andersen’s graduate school thesis project at Carnegie Mellon University about five years ago.
“[Carnegie Mellon] has maybe the best musical theater school in the country, so I was like, ‘I’m not going to leave and not have the actors I work with sing,’ but my background is in Shakespeare; I do mostly Shakespeare and so I thought this was a really nice challenge for me,” Andersen, director of As You Like It, said. “I’ve always had Bandits [on the Run] in the back of my mind for this play since we met … because their music is so folksy and whimsical, and they all are actors. They all have a theater background, so they get what it needs.”
After a few years of workshopping the project with Andersen, Bandits on the Run came to Chautauqua in 2025 for an unrelated concert in the Amphitheater.
“We’ve started doing this thing in our sets recently where we’ll play a few songs that we’re writing for musicals,” Sydney Shepherd, one of the band members, said. “… We thought, for a more theatrical setting like this, it’d be fun to play some songs for musicals that we’re writing … A couple months after that, we got an email from the theatrical side of Chautauqua, and they were like, ‘So, tell us more about this As You Like It show.’”
After returning to the Amp for a Sunday afternoon performance, Bandits on the Run spent the week continuing to develop the musical adaptation of As You Like It alongside Andersen and performers in the Acting Conservatory.
“We’re really interested in presence over preparation,” Shepherd said. “We are preparing, but there’s something about getting into a room with all of these new personalities and talents and just seeing what emerges. I know some of these people play instruments, so maybe we’ll have some of them do that. We’re just really looking forward … to [having] the resources and people and time to play around and see what we can discover about these songs.”
Bandits on the Run’s Adrian Blake Enscoe plays guitar while workshopping the musical adaptation.
Although many of the workshop’s songs were written by Bandits on the Run, the Bard had already set the folk trio up with a strong foundation on which to build.
“It’s [Shakespeare’s] most musical play, so it already has six songs built into it,” Andersen said. “In the first draft, we added an additional five, and now we’ve already got two or three more since we’ve been here at Chautauqua, so it’s ever-growing … It’s about people falling in love and figuring out who they are, and so music just really suits that expression. I’d also say it’s about people who leave a city environment and go into the woods, so finding that folksy quality to it also supports the play.”
As You Like It is not only particularly adept for the addition of musical numbers, but Shakespeare’s writing also inherently lends itself to musicality.
“So much of Shakespeare’s text is already in a rhythm,” Shepherd said. “The way he writes in iambic pentameter … is already a musical rhythm structure, so it’s fun to play around with … We’ve had a lot of freedom with taking certain lines and making them into choruses and making them feel a little more like a modern pop song than a poem, but the structure is really exciting because it’s some of the coolest language to use and … put more of our modern spin on it.”
By modernizing a centuries-old script, members of CTC are still able to focus on their passions for developing new work. Savanha Moore has been able to exercise her skills in new work development as an assistant stage manager at CTC for the past two seasons, and is now serving as the stage manager for As You Like It.
“This cut very much feels like a new work to me,” Moore said. “It’s been shortened, some things have been truncated, but also Bandits on the Run have come in … so while it is an old play and an adaptation, I think it completely is a new work, and that’s how we’re going to approach the process.”
CTC Producing Artistic Director Jade King Carroll is also looking forward to bringing a fusion of new and old work to Chautauquans, who can experience the workshop in Bratton Theater until Aug. 15.
“I fell in love with Chautauqua through Shakespeare and directing The Tempest here, and it’s such a joy to be ending the season … with a classical text with all of our Conservatory in celebration of love and classic theater,” King Carroll said.
CTC Guest Actor Zo Tipp, in the role of Jaques, rehearses during the table reading.
