Multicultural Focus Part Of PlayMakers' `All's Well'

PlayMakers wraps up its silver anniversary season with an interpretation of Shakespeare's classic romantic comedy Saturday and an African-American classic theater workshop over the summer. The production of "All's Well" is also apropos, as the play closed PlayMakers' season 25 years ago.

Both the play and the workshop feature the talents of Trezana Beverley, a Tony-award-winning actress and the president and artistic director of New York's OdD Socks Productions.

She was drawn to the role of Countess Rossillion by her friendship with PlayMakers Artistic Director David Hammond. The two first worked together when Beverley starred in PlayMakers' world premiere of "Constant Star" in 1999. Hammond directs "All's Well" and invited Beverley to return to UNC.

The veteran director of several Shakespeare festivals, Hammond knows his Bard. His interpretation of "All's Well" is somewhat modernized -- taking place in a nonspecific modern time with vaguely modern garb to match.

The comedy has enjoyed a popular resurgence of late, but it has always had an appeal to Hammond. "('All's Well') is one of my very favorite Shakespeare plays," Hammond said. "It's a classic fairy tale about change and sameness ... it feels like a dream."

Beverley holds Shakespeare highly as well, but compares acting in his plays to dancing. "I think Shakespeare is the ballet of theater," Beverley said. "There is a kind of divine spirit operating in Shakespeare theater."

Beginning her career in theater acting, Beverley became involved with dance as a discipline. Her OdD Socks company now fuses the two together. "My company almost formed itself five years ago," she said, "as a result of work I had been doing with dancers who also wanted to act."

From her work with OdD Socks, she developed "DanzActing," which blends acting and dancing. DanzActing will be used in her summer workshop to study Shakespeare and other classic works through the lens of African rituals, which are dance-oriented. "We are African Americans," she said, "and ritual, dance and sound are very integrated in our expression."

It is the goal of Beverley and Hammond to have the workshop bridge the artistic gap between PlayMakers and the black community.

"We want to develop a group of African-American artists here and do multicultural productions of classics," Hammond said. "We hope to do 'Julius Caesar' the year after next."

Beverley added that in addition to fostering a black theater community, she and Hammond want to expose black theater to the area.

"We want to introduce it to the white public as well, who don't see enough black theater," she said.

To some, Shakespeare might seem an unlikely forum for multicultural expression, but not to Beverley. For her, Shakespeare is a common denominator between cultures and art forms.

"Shakespeare's stories are so classic and universal," she said. "They can be applied everywhere."

"All's Well That Ends Well" opens Saturday night at Paul Green Theatre. Call the box office at 962-7529.

Auditions for the PlayMakers-hosted workshop are May 6-7. For more information, call 962-4055.

The Arts & Entertainment Editor can be reached at artsdesk@unc.edu.