I had one reason and one reason only for visiting Staunton and that was to visit the Blackfriars Playhouse. I am an inveterate devotee of Shakespearean Theater and going way out of my way to see a production is not at all unusual. What we finally did was to drive to Staunton from Charlottesville for a Thursday night performance of the Three Musketeers. It was offered in repertory with Hamlet and A Comedy of Errors. We spent Sunday Night in Staunton and the Sunday Matinee offering was Hamlet. Having last seen Hamlet in Stratford on Avon on September 11, 2001, I was not anxious to see a repeat performance. Every season brings a new list of offerings. They offer four different show schedules every year.

I recommend knowing where the theater is before you drive into town. We got stuck in a terrible traffic jam and had to take an alternate route off the Interstate. We pulled into a Blockbuster Video and asked the help there (more than one person) where the Shakespeare Theater was. We got totally blank stares. Evidently these young folks weren’t into Shakespeare. If I wasn’t afraid of missing the performance, I would have found this whole episode very amusing. It really was funny, there is a Shakespeare Theater in Staunton, wow Luckily a customer was able to give us general directions.

We found a parking spot along the street on the hill below the theater. There is free parking in the New Street Parking garage right behind the theater which we didn’t know at the time.

This theater is an exact recreation of Shakespear’s original theater. There are several seating options. We opted for the most expensive, the Lord’s chairs. These run along the side the stage and have seat backs. The benches have no seat backs. Bench seats in section A include portable backs and seat cushions. There are discount seats that don’t include the backs. If you want a very special experience, you can choose to have some gallants stool. These are stools right on the stage, talk about being in the middle of the action

Before the show drinks were offered in the lobby and then in the theater. It was hilarious, a very fake French man was selling zee beer and zee soda. He was flirting with the ladies and making sport of the men, it was all in good fun.

There is no photography allowed in the theater but I had contacted the manager in advance and he allowed me to go into the theater as soon as the actors finished their warm up and let me shoot whatever I wanted. Another reason I didn’t want to arrive late.

The company here is wonderful and I can’t imagine not loving any show they put on. The prices are very reasonable too. Booking is available online. www.americanshakespearecenter.com 

The Blackfriars Playhouse is the only replica of the Blackfriars Theatre in London where Shakespeare's plays were staged in the Elizabethan days. The original Blackfriars Playhouse consisted of two theatres. (The Shenandoah Shakespeare plans to build the second theatre "Globe" in the future.) The idea of seeing a Shakespeare's play in a theatre that looked like the original theatre intrigued me for quite sometime.

I was excited when we purchased our matinee tickets for "King Lear". When we got to our seats it was fun to observe the stage and where the audience sits. The stage was two floors high with a balcony and there were even seats for the audience on the stage! The woodcarvings and the details were authentic, and to simulate the lights they had candlestick looking electric lights.

The theatre has four types of seats: Lords' seats, A, B and C sections. We sat in the first floor at the A section. The seats were simple wood benches, being a student for so long sitting on wood bench with no back was no problem for me. However, the older audience rented for $2 nice cushions, and another extra $2 for a seat back. (Did they have these luxuries in Shakespeare's days?). The theater was not as crowded as the original Blackfriars would be (I watched the Shakespeare in Love movie, I saw that it was pretty crowded in those days).

Then the play started. I was a little bit disappointed to see that the actors and actresses dressed in modern clothes. I thought if they had all the trouble of building a replica of the Elizabethan theatre they would be playing in period clothes. The Shenandoah Shakespeare Company states that when Julies Caesar was first played the actors did not dress in togas; they were dressed in Elizabethan period clothing. Another interesting thing was that the fool was played by a woman. The logic behind this was: in Shakespeare's times man played in all parts. These days anyone can play any part.

I was really impressed by the actor who played King Lear. In the play he looked very old to us. However, after the show we saw him and realized he is probably younger than us.

You can order your tickets online or from the ticket office next to the Staunton Visitor Center at downtown Staunton. There are discounted tickets ($10) for students right before the show if there are seats available.

Blackfriars Playhouse, built in 2000 in downtown Staunton, creates a Renaisannce-theater experience for its audience--it's the world's only re-created version of Shakespeare's London Globe Theater. What I would call wagon-wheel chandeliers hang from the ceilings and hover above the two-story wooden stage. (You need a balcony for plays like Romeo and Juliet, you know.) The bench-style seats are also wooden and the detailing of the balcony railings adds to the theater's beauty and atmosphere. See attached photos.

The troupe believes, as Shakespeare said in Romeo and Juliet, that plays should consume only "two hours' traffic of our stage." Their stage adaptations keep audiences involved (the play goes on around you, and children can even sit on the stage itself).

I paid a visit to the theater during my Christmas visit to my parents' house, and my Mom and I had great pleasure seeing the Shenandoah Shakespeare troupe's version of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. It was a wonderful two hours, with some contemporary references woven into an old play. When Scrooge asks the Ghost of Christmas Present whether Tiny Tim will live, the ghost doesn't answer. When Scrooge asks again, the ghost replies, "it's intermission, Scrooge." Ha!

The tickets you get suggest that you arrive a half-hour early to enjoy some pre-show entertainment. Local musicians played Christmas music and costumed carolers sang to us.

Tips, the seats are wooden, as I mentioned, and pretty hard on the tooshie. For $2, you can rent a cushion to sit on and, for another $2, you can rent a back for your bench as well. I recommend at least the cushion, but the play itself should be so engaging that you're leaning forward the whole time anyway. :)

To purchase tickets, visit Shenandoah Shakespeare. Prices range from $10-$50. (FYI: The expensive seats have backs and cushions and sit on the first floor alongside the stage; the center stage seats are better for seeing the play.) You may also order over the phone at 540/885-5588 from 10am to 5pm (EST) Monday to Saturday. Tickets for orders made over a week in advance will be mailed to your home address; you can also opt to pick them up at the theater.

Some of the upcoming productions for 2003 are Twelfth Night, Richard III, Julius Ceasar, and one of my personal Shakespeare favorites--The Taming of the Shrew.