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Sections Home Page Local News AP News Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Since We Asked Sports Tempo Weather Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Readers Choice 2006 Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Our Valley Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend June 16, 2006 Ashland's Elizabethan stage opens "The Merry Wives of Windsor," "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" light up the nights this summer at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival By BILL VARBLE Mail Tribune William Shakespeare's "The Merry Wives of Windsor" will kick off the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's 2006 outdoor season the stage Saturday night, and Shakespeare's "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" will wind up opening weekend Sunday night. "The 2006 outdoor season will make for fun and innovative theatrical adventures," says OSF Artistic Director Libby Appel. Neither of the Shakespeare plays is considered among the Bard's best work. Last year's outdoor season included "Twelfth Night," regarded as one of the great comedies, and the challenging and highly regarded "Love's Labor's Lost."This year's pairing offers a sweep that could make them hugely entertaining on the stage of the big outdoor theater. Appel describes all three plays as hard to resist. "The Merry Wives," directed by Andrew Tsao, will feature G. Valmont Thomas as the fat knight, Sir John Falstaff, who at the time of the play is down on his luck and concocts a plan to seduce Mistress Ford Tyler Layton and Mistress Page Shona Tucker, each of whom, he has heard, controls the purse strings of her newly affluent bourgeois family. Advertisement "Cyrano" will feature the return to the OSF stage of actor Marco Barricelli as the poet-swordsman who woos the fair Roxane Robin Goodrin Nordli, whom he secretly loves, on behalf of his tongue-tied friend Christian Rex Young. Laird Williamson "Life is a Dream," "Julius Caesar" directs. In "Two Gentlemen," Proteus Gregory Linington tries to steal Silvia Sarah Rutan, the new love of his best friend, Valentine Juan Rivera LeBron, but Julia Miriam A. Laube has other ideas. Bill Rauch Hedda Gabler," "The Comedy of Errors" directs. "We invite our audiences to rediscover, or discover for the first time," Appel says, "the poetry and language of Shakespeare and Rostand, to engage with their memorable characters and experience their enduring stories." Tsao is known for his inventive Shakespearean productions at his Studio City-based R37 Theatre and his recent collaboration with Nilo Cruz on "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" at the Center Theatre Group. This time out he re-imagines "Merry Wives" as Lewis Carroll's Alice might have seen it — colorful, whimsical, and a bit wacky. G. Valmont Thomas, in his eighth season at OSF, returns from a year of teaching to play the old scoundrel Sir John Falstaff. Tony DeBruno plays Master Page, and Jonathan Haugen is Master Ford. Scenic designer is Richard L. Hay, costumes are by Susan E. Mickey, lights by Robert Peterson, music by John Tanner. Rostand's "Cyrano de Bergerac," translated by Anthony Burgess, will feature Barricelli, who has won numerous Bay Area acting awards since leaving OSF, in the title role. Barricelli spent several years at OSF and was last on the Elizabethan Stage in 2000 as Hamlet. For the last decade he has been an associate artist at the American Conservatory Theatre on Geary Street in San Francisco's Theatre District. Robin Goodrin Nordli plays the independent and quick-witted Roxane, and Rex Young is Christian, who borrows Cyrano's poetry to win Roxane's heart. Directed by Laird Williamson, with 17th-century costumes by Deborah M. Dryden and scenic design by William Bloodgood, the production promises romance, poetry, heartbreak and swordplay. Lights are by Robert Peterson, with music by Todd Barton. For "The Two Gentlemen of Verona," director Bill Rauch and his design team have created a world where rural piety meets Brooks Brothers meets punk. This comedy about young love has an early version of what would become a Shakespeare standard: a resourceful heroine in disguise. It has an irreverent servant, and it has one the of the most famous supporting canines in literature, Crab the dog. The cast includes Gregory Linington as Proteus, Juan Rivera LeBron as Valentine, Miriam A. Laube as Julia, Sarah Rutan as Sylvia, and David Kelly as Launce. Scenic is by Christopher Acebo, costumes by Joyce Kim Lee, lights by Robert Peterson, music by Paul James Prendergast. The plays will continue in repertory through Oct. 8. 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