Wednesday, May 26, 1999 | 9:41 a.m.
What: "The Taming of the Shrew."
When: 7 p.m., Thursday-Sunday; 10 a.m. Friday (for students).
Where: Hills Park Summerlin.
Cost: $10 general admission; $4 student admission on Friday; children under 5 admitted free to all shows.
Information: Call 396-7400.
His name is circling Hollywood and the actors who recite his iambic pentameter on screen weep over their subsequent Oscars.
Shakespeare is cool again, and if you haven't read the book and don't want to wait for the movie, the Nevada Stage Company ends its nine-month season with its original production of the Bard's play "The Taming of the Shrew" Thursday through Sunday at The Hills Park in Summerlin.
"To get people to see Shakespeare, it has to be an event," Donna Lowre, a local artist and artistic director of the Nevada Stage Company, says.
Lowre's adaptation adds a little twist, some scat and a touch of shimmy to the piece, updating the 400-year-old play's introduction to this century with a swing dance hall setting.
" 'Taming of the Shrew' is funny and we wanted to do something different," Lowre says.
Aye, there's the rub: For in that play of warring lovers Petruchio and Kate -- whom Petruchio pursues and is determined to teach the finer points of being an obedient wife -- the struggle between men and women is scrutinized and the audience is left wondering who gets the spoils. And who spoils the plot.
"All our passions, our deepest emotions, Shakespeare taps into," Lowre says. "He is so right on about human nature, and everything about (his plays) are huge."
Lowre's production of this play-within-a-play begins in 1940s Los Angeles at a swing club, where an oafish braggart named Christopher Sly is stinking drunk, regaling others with tales of the proper way to treat -- and train -- a lady.
After he passes out, the patrons of the club decide to play a trick on him: When he awakens he believes he has been transported back in time to the Elizabethan era, where women are fawning over him.
"While working on this, I really had to reevaluate the way (society) sees men and women's relationships," Lowre says.
Lowre plays the lead, Kate, a woman whose vibrant spirit gets in the way of her expected wifely duties -- and her heart. "It's about balancing out the roles of male and female," she says.
The idea behind Kate's last speech -- about how women can serve their husbands -- was difficult for Lowre to accept. "I didn't understand it. I don't believe in subservience, but to serve is different," she says. "We serve God, we serve our children, why can't we serve our husbands? What's wrong with that? Why can't we serve each other?"
Lowre's insights run parallel to the play, and love's labors are not lost on Kate, whose taming by Petruchio involves quick wit, confusion and revelations.
The play will be performed under open skies, as Shakespeare intended.
"It's wonderful outside because so much of Shakespeare takes place outside," she says, her arms outstretched and eyes open wide. "Shakespeare is so incredibly big, if you are an actor, outside, you can just go with it."
The costumes, sets, action and words that hit their mark with a sting or sweetness, she says, will make for a lively afternoon for players on stage and the audience lounging on the park's sloping green hills.
"The park is the perfect venue for Shakespeare because people who may be intimidated by the language will feel comfortable in that beautiful setting," Lowre says. "They can have their picnic and enjoy themselves. It's a good time for families to get together and that's important to us as a community (stage) company."
And also to the sponsor -- the Howard Hughes Corp. -- which was looking for a local producton company to perform at the Hills Park amphitheater when Lowre happened to ask the Summerlin developer if it was interested in plays in the park.
"Shakespeare is undergoing a resurgence in popularity," Melissa Warren, spokesperson for the Howard Hughes Corp., says. The corporation noticed the popularity of Green Valley's annual "Shakespeare in the Park" in the fall at Fox Ridge Park by an out-of-town troupe and was impressed with the Nevada Stage Company's use of local talent. More than 6,000 people are expected to attend the play this weekend.
The blond, fair-skinned Lowre has an extensive television and theatrical background, having guest-starred in popular '80s television shows such as "Who's the Boss," "Falcon Crest," "General Hospital" and, more recently, "Promised Land" and "Columbo," as well as in films and New York stage productions. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London.
"Theater was always my first love," she says. "The audience has to be involved. It touches people in a personal way, not like film where you have this thing between you. They are a part of the experience."
Lowre came to Las Vegas in 1994 after Los Angeles' Northridge earthquake shook her home and family.
"I don't believe in coincidences," she says. "I think things happen when they are supposed to happen."
And Las Vegas, she says, just happened to be ready for a stage company for the many trained actors with years of professional experience who were milling around the valley.
"There are a lot of professional theater people from the larger cities -- Los Angeles, New York, Chicago -- and they just happen to live here," she says, adding that it makes it easier to keep her 2-year-old company filled with local talent.
"There are a lot more quality actors in Las Vegas than we are given credit for, " she says. "We just have to find each other."
Lowre says there is a stigma attached to Las Vegas actors -- that they are untrained extras from TV shows and movies that breeze through town to film.
"Like anything, I think we need to all work together," she says. "It takes time to build up a reputation."
But she says she is in the right place at the right time.
"The passion," she says, "is certainly there."
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