DAILY CAMERA: Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder brings lesser-known plays to life

(Above: Left to right: Lindsey Kyler, Carolyn Holding, Kelsey Didion and Emelie O’Hara. Photo by Jennifer Koskinen) 

The Colorado Shakespeare Festival is poised to claim some very elite bragging rights.

The troupe’s upcoming “original practices” production of the history play “Henry VI, Part 2” in July keeps the festival on track to complete Shakespeare’s entire canon of 38 plays for the second time by 2017. Only a handful of arts organizations in North America have accomplished that feat, and the achievement would give an already storied festival even more clout.

But the brass at the CSF aren’t focused solely on breaking records or adding feathers to their Elizabethan caps. The mission at the heart of one of the oldest Shakespeare festivals in the United States has always been about connecting audiences with the work of the Bard of Avon. Programming for the 2016 season is about far more than checking titles off a list; it’s designed to bring some of Shakespeare’s lesser known titles to life for theatergoers.

This year’s lineup features two of Shakespeare’s most obscure tragedies, as well as a comedy that often takes a back seat at festivals to sure-fire crowd pleasers like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The season will kick off on Saturday (with a preview performance today) with “The Comedy of Errors,” followed by productions of “Troilus and Cressida,” “Cymbeline” and a single performance of “Henry VI, Part 2,” a show designed to recreate the conditions the first Shakespearean actors faced in the 16th and 17th centuries.

The 2016 season will also feature the regional premiere of “Equivocation,” by contemporary playwright Bill Cain. The show, set in 1606 and featuring William Shakespeare as a main character, maintains the festival’s commitment to including new work.

Only the one-time performance of “Henry VI” will further the CSF’s march toward its second…read the full story here.