From The Saginaw News, August 11, 2007

A few scenes in a small setting makes for comfortable viewing of Shakespeare.
By Janet I. Martineau

Shakespeare up close and kinda personal is awesome.

A picture fell to the floor beside us when an actress bumped it. Once, twice, maybe three times an
actor lay prone on the floor within inches.

And at one point, when four star-crossed lovers got into a spat, we hung onto the table where our
Chai tea resided in fear the physicality of the sparring would overturn it.

"In Shakespeare's day, we think this is what it was like, when his acting troupe performed in the
homes of lords and ladies and in taverns," says Scott Lange, a native of Saginaw Township, one of
actors involved in the sparring quartet.

"We've all seen bad Shakespeare, boring talking-head Shakespeare when the actors just talk to
each other.
"With us, we get right in there amid the audience and put a lot of energy to it."

First an admission. I am not, never have been and likely never will be a big fan of anything
Shakespeare. For a variety of reasons.

But when the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company from Grand Haven announced it was
presenting three performances of scenes from the Bard's plays at Frankenmuth's Harvest
Coffeehouse and Beanery last weekend, I was intrigued.

One, I could have a Chai -- my beverage of choice. Two, I could wear jeans and just kick back and
relax. At one point a cast member even told the people in attendance to feel free to get up and
move around: "The cast will adjust to you."

And three, it was just scenes. No four-hour marathons, as some Shakespearean plays are.
The nine-member cast was excellent, always concisely summarizing the play and the scene before
performing it.
They slid across the wood floor in their shoes, hid behind pillars and posts, grabbed Beanery
books and tables and chairs as make-do props, ducked into a closet, enunciated and projected
well.

Ten plays in 90 minutes.

The ghost of his father stalking Hamlet. Beatrice having much ado in overhearing a conversation
about Benedick's love for her while trying to stay invisible amid the audience.
Cleopatra all but killing the messenger before her. Those two couples bickering on a real-life
midsummer's night, thanks to that fairy named Puck. Venice-dwelling Portia sputtering about the
unsuitable suitors in her life, and using men in the audience as the dashed dandies.

Mostly laughs, played broadly. But some heated conversation out of "Julius Caesar," too. There
were a few rips and tears in their costumes. There was some gender bending in casting.

And we got to thinking ... maybe Shakespeare is performed wrongly for the most part. He did write,
if you recall, "all the world's a stage." And that surely includes coffee houses with Chai tea, tables
and casually dressed audiences.

Lange says the three shows averaged 35 people at each, with the Sunday matinee drawing the
highest number. The Pigeon Creek actors are happy with that, he says. The space would not have
allowed many more anyway.

"We told people they could come, watch a few scenes and go," he said. "But the majority stayed for
the entire performance. Some people came in just for a coffee, saw what was going on and
stayed."
So, Lange says, the Pigeon Creek crew is talking with Harvest Coffeehouse about returning with
the scenes this fall and then again in February for a Valentine's Day dinner at the place with two or
three of them doing love scenes from Shakespeare.

And maybe, just maybe, next summer a production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" at the small
Fischer Hall in Frankenmuth.

Classic theater is imperiled in this country -- particularly in small towns. But this group of young
actors dedicated to it gives one hope that if it is well staged in unusual places, people will come.
And stay.