Much Ado About Nothing

Click here for a review of the show by Neil Zolot of the Saugus Advertiser on WickedLocal.com.

The Theatre Company of Saugus announces its production of Much Ado About Nothing, the romantic-dramatic comedy by William Shakespeare. The director is Anna Lee Percuoco.

The play features the antagonistic (but romantic) relationship between Beatrice and Benedick, two of Shakespeare’s best slingers of insults, and the threats to the romance of their friends Hero and Claudio. The show is set in the summer of 1946, and features an abundance of 1940s music, singing, and dancing.

The performances will be in-person and outdoors at the Breakheart Reservation in Saugus, Massachusetts, on the lawn in front of the visitor center. See our Directions page. Patrons should bring their own lawn chairs or blankets to sit on; we may have a few chairs available.

The performance dates are June 4-6 and June 11-13, 2021. (Performances could be extended to June 18-20, if there are too many rainouts earlier.)

We are asking for donations instead of selling tickets. See our Tickets page.

We are please to announce the cast of the show!

Beatrice – Nicole Abbondanza
Benedick – Nick Gould
Hero – Talia Cutulle
Claudio – Patrick Conaway
Leonato – John Leonard
Antonia – Sherri Wilcauskas
Don Pedro – Charlie Ferguson
Lady Jane – Katie Speed
Margaret – Hanna Burnett
Ursula, Seacole – Valerie Tracy
Borachio – Tyler Cronin
Bianca, Sexton – Karissa Vincent
Connie – Nicole Jones
Dogberry – Billy Jenkins
Verges – Zackary Perry
Friar Francis, Launce – Katie Demasi
Messenger, Server – Mackayla Beaton

The cast includes several TCS veterans: Hanna Burnett, Talia Cutulle, John Leonard, Zackary Perry, and Shreri Wilcauskas. And we welcome all these new people to the TCS stage: Nicole Abbondanza, Mackayla Beaton, Patrick Conaway, Tyler Cronin, Katie Demasi, Charlie Ferguson, Nick Gould, Billy Jenkins, Nicole Jones, Katie Speed, Valerie Tracy, and Karissa Vincent.

Click here to view the program/playbill.

Rehearsals were first done via Zoom, and continued in May in-person in Saugus, as the cast was entirely vaccinated.

Here is our plan for COVID safety during the rehearsals of this show:

While we will be conducting most of the rehearsals over Zoom, TCS will consider having in-person rehearsals by mid-May; possibly earlier depending on how many members of the cast end up fully vaccinated. All in-person rehearsals will be held outside unless otherwise agreed upon by the actors and director.
We will do our best to limit the number of people at each rehearsal.
Unless required by the specific scene, actors and director will remain physically distanced. We will have markers for people not on stage demonstrating the proper amount of physical distance that should be maintained.
Actors will be emailed the script before the first read through and will be expected to print and bring their own copies to rehearsal. They will also be expected to bring anything else they will need (water bottles, pen/pencils, etc.) so as not to share with anyone else in the cast.
For now, we plan to have actors and director wear masks during in-person rehearsals. We hope to be able to adjust this for outside rehearsals as we keep an eye on (hopefully) dropping numbers and CDC recommendations.
We expect for actors to be vaccinated as soon as possible so that we can (hopefully) be unmasked at the performance. Another option could be an actor quarantining before the performance and getting a rapid test. We will work out the details in accordance with CDC recommendations as the date approaches.
Our goal is to hopefully have Much Ado About Nothing performed outside and in-person for the Saugus community. We will follow all standards set forward by the CDC. If the appropriate standards cannot be met, we will consider having the performances virtually, over Zoom.