I have a good friend in the show and she tells me that they have turned the show into a western. I am afraid to see it. Any other St. Louis natives worried about our Much Ado About a Western??
Hold me touch me, Hold me touch me... Kiss me feel me, Yank me spank me, Suck me fu... ah! Hold me touch me!
I'm a little intrigued. As far as I know, the Shakespeare Festival folks typically haven't had to alter their plays or "dumb them down". I do hope this doesn't start a trend.
The Overture is part of the show, people. Please shut your pie hole.
You don't have to alter the text to change the setting. I've seen production of "As You Like It" and "Taming of the Shrew" done in Wild West settings, and they did not change a word of the plays.
Back in the late 1950's the Stratford Connecticut Shakespeare Festival did "Much Ado" with Alfred Drake and Katherine Hepburn in the lead roles. It was set in Southern Texas, with the characters of "Don John" and "Don Pedro" and their men dressed in flashy Mexican outfits with big sombreros - looking like the Cisco Kid (or, for a more modern reference, "The Three Amogios").