Firstly, I really want to thank everyone who worked on this project and also went out of there way to come here to see this production. It really means the world to me that there are people who value local art.

I’m a really big contender of you can do whatever you want with Shakespeare. You can set it during any time you want, you can genderbend any character, you can even give new meaning to the text if you can justify it. I had really had my heart set on doing a western rendition of a Shakespeare show, and I ended up landing on Twelfth Night. At first, the idea was for it to set place during the California Gold Rush, and in a way it still is. But as the production progressed, we went from it specifically being California Gold Rush to general western. I see it in the way that shows like Bridgerton take the Gilded Age– more so just kind of general theming. I seek to do something similar with Shakespeare and the California Gold Rush, and therefore a general western. Of course it’s not going to be 100% historically accurate, but that’s not necessarily the point. The primary point of this is to take people who are not necessarily represented in the classic western story setting (ie: queer people, people of color, disabled people, etc.) and placing them in a story where their identity wouldn’t necessarily pertain to their specific marginalized identity. They just exist in a western and so happen to be of marginalized identity.

Now that on top of it being a Shakespeare play, of which not every identity is necessarily represented as well, we are able to transform and challenge both what classical theatre, Shakespeare, and what a western looks like. We seek to beg the question of “why not?”, “why wouldn’t this be possible?”, “who doesn’t want to be a cowboy?”. I myself am queer, Filipino, autistic, and disabled and of course, all of those combined I seldom get to see people like myself in any story. It’s not a radical change, but I hope that Ye Olde Theatre Eaters’ production of Twelfth Night still serves a bit of push-back on “conventional” casting– there are so many diverse artists in our community and it would be a disservice to not showcase how talented they are.

The bottom line is representation. Often people of marginalized identities don’t really have a lot of media to see themselves in that’s not pertaining to struggles regarding their identity. For the most part in Ye Olde Theatre Eaters’ production of Twelfth Night, actor identity is not necessarily relevant to the story or their characters (of course there being some exceptions to this “rule”), and I think that there needs to be more approaches to classical theatre in this way to prove that these stories are not for one specific kind of person, and are representative of everyone regardless of who they are.

Again, I want to thank everyone behind this production of Twelfth Night, from our cast, our creative team, and to everyone decided to support us by seeing this show.