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Actor sinks teeth into Shakespeare Fest role

Contributed by: Steve Shultz/YourHub.com on 6/30/2008

Douglas County Libraries' seventh annual Shakespeare Festival kicks off this month, and the main event is a professional performance of As You Like It, an early romantic comedy.

The play will be put on by Theatreworks, a professional theater company based in Colorado Springs. Performances of As You Like It will take place at 7:30 p.m. July 24 through 26 at Civic Green Park, 9370 Ridgeline Blvd. in Highlands Ranch. Admission is free.

While most of the actors are from Colorado Springs, a few live in the metro area, including David Pickney, of Denver.

Pickney, who will be playing Jaques in the play, says you have to make sense of Shakespeare's writing before you can deliver it to an audience.

"The trick is to convey it to the audience," Pickney said. "There's no Shakespeare show you can do without first analyzing it."

This is Pickney's first year with Theatreworks and Douglas County Libraries' Shakespeare Festival, but he has worked with director Murray Ross in a previous, non-Shakespearean production titled Dar Al-Harb, which is Arabic for "World of Chaos."

Rehearsals for As You Like It started June 24, and Pickney said he rehearses five to six days a week at three to six hours each day. Shortly before the performances beginning July 24, he said they will put in 10 to 12 hours of rehearsal time each day. He said he also puts in a couple hours of his own time each day.

"I'm constantly thinking about the show when I'm driving," he said.

Pickney said Jaques is a philosopher and has a slight snootiness to him.
"He always has an opinion on everything he's seen and he's not shy to share it," he said. "And he's an observer."

Pickney's character delivers one of Shakespeare's most famous lines: "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages."

According to Douglas County Libraries, As You Like It is the story of families fractured by jealousy and desire, who, through a series of comedic episodes, are drawn together by tolerance and brotherly love.

"It seems it's a play of a lot of travelers," Pickney said. "It's really a play that's about nothing, but it's about everything."

Pickney's love for theater began at age 9 in New York City. In Denver, he has done shows for Friends of Eulipions, the Denver Civic Theatre and the Acoma Center before joining Theatreworks.

Pickney said he performed quite a bit of Shakespearean plays in college, and his personal favorite is Othello. But he said he prefers Molière to Shakespeare. His favorite Molière play is The Imaginary Invalid.

"It's very much on the level of Shakespeare," he said.

There are more events throughout Douglas County comprising the 2008 Shakespeare Festival. Click here for a complete schedule.


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