AS YOU LIKE IT - General Entry - Free Shakespeare in the Park Tickets

By: William Shakespeare, adapted by Shaina Taub & Laurie Woolery, with Music & Lyrics by Shaina Taub Director: Laurie Woolery Producer: Public Theater / Public Works Cast list: Damion Allen (as William), Tristan André (as De Boys/Attendant), Amar Atkins (as Understudy Duke Senior/Duke Frederick), Ato Blankson-Wood (as Orlando), Lori Brown-Niang (as Agent/Puppet-deer), Sean-Michael Bruno (as Understudy De Boys), Brianna Cabrera (as Silvia), Darius de Haas (as Duke Senior), Bianca Edwards (as Phoebe), Danyel Fulton (as Understudy Rosalind/Phoebe), Emily Gardner Xu Hall (as Jaques Standby), Pierre Harmony Graves (as De Boys/Arden Dancer/Young Orlando Dad), Rebecca Naomi Jones (as Rosalind), Jonathan Jordan (as Andy), Trevor McGhie (as Understudy Orlando/Oliver), Mike Millán (as Understudy Touchstone/Andy), Bobby Moody (as De Boys/Arden Dancer), Renrick Palmer (as Oliver), Eric Pierre (as Duke Frederick), Idania Quezada (as Celia), Christopher M. Ramirez (as Touchstone), Edwin Rivera (as De Boys/Attendant), Kevin Tate (as Understudy De Boys Dancer), Shaina Taub (as Jaques), Claudia Yanez (as Understudy Celia/Silvia) Design: Myung Hee Cho Lighting: Isabella Byrd Costume: Emilio Sosa Choreography: Sonya Tayeh, with choreography restaging and additional choreography by Billy Griffin Sound: Sun Hee Kil

The Central Park "woods" are transforming into the Forest of Arden this summer. Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery's joyful musical adaptation of As You Like It is back at Free Shakespeare in the Park for a monthlong run. Enter the Lottery for free As You Like It tickets on TodayTix.

Shakespeare's original As You Like It play kicks off with trouble in a French kingdom. Duke Frederick has just usurped the throne from his older brother, Duke Senior. He banished Senior's entire court to the nearby Forest of Arden — at first sparing only Rosalind, Senior's daughter and the closest friend of Frederick's own daughter, Celia. Soon, though, they get exiled, too, and they're off to the forest themselves, albeit in disguise. Rosalind dresses as a man named Ganymede, and Celia as a poor girl named Aliena.

Comedy quickly abounds in the forest as mistaken identities complicate everyone's romantic pursuits. A lovesick man named Orlando accepts help from "Ganymede" in getting over his crush, Rosalind — not realizing that Ganymede is Rosalind, and that she likes him back. A shepherdess falls in love with Ganymede, also not realizing "his" real identity. Celia falls in love with a man herself under the alias of "Aliena." And that's not even the half of the madcap mayhem in As You Like It!

The As You Like It musical adaptation keeps this story and all its laughs intact while highlighting the Forest of Arden as a haven, where anyone can find love and acceptance for who they are. While you're in the Delacorte Theater at As You Like It, you'll feel like you've escaped the world for a few hours and found joy, too.

Shakespeare's play has been around since the 17th century, but the premiere of Taub and Woolery's As You Like It in New York was much more recent, in 2017. The show played a weeklong engagement at the Delacorte, and the 2022 production marks the show's first full-length run. 2020 Tony Award winner Sonya Tayeh adds even more energy to this vibrant production with original choreography.

Enter the TodayTix Lottery for a chance to win free tickets to As You Like It at Free Shakespeare in the Park.

What to Watch For

• Shaina Taub does it all! As You Like It is her second musical going up in New York this year, and she's written and performed in both. Back in the spring, she starred as suffragist Alice Paul in Suffs, and now, she plays Jaques in As You Like It. She wrote the music and lyrics for both, wrote the book for Suffs, and co-adapted As You Like It.
• As You Like It is part of The Public Theater's Public Works program, which commissions new musicals to be performed in part by non-professionals. Alongside the professional actors in the leading roles is an ensemble of actors from the New York City community. The show has included so many ensemble members — over 100 in total — that they're actually split into two groups that perform on alternating nights!
• The 2022 production of the As You Like It musical is very similar to its premiere in 2017. In an interview with The Stage, she said, "What my collaborators... and I realised is that the things that we brought out of that play and the things that were important to us – we put LGBT storylines in it and the whole story of community resilience and healing in the face of tragedy – we felt at peace with the adaptation."
• As You Like It is Taub's second Shakespeare musical adaptation to be performed at Shakespeare in the Park. Perhaps you saw her first, Twelfth Night, in 2016, with Tony Award winner Nikki M. James as Viola.
• Taub isn't the only Shakespeare musical writer to be represented at the Delacorte, though. In 2013, Tony Award winner Alex Timbers and Obie Award winner Michael Friedman's adaptation of Love's Labour's Lost had its world premiere with Shakespeare in the Park. And one of the stars of that production, Rebecca Naomi Jones (Laurey in the 2019 Oklahoma! revival), now stars in As You Like It as Rosalind!