A little bit of homework can make the Shakespeare experience at San Harbor as wonderful as the spectacular beach venue.

Lake Tahoe Community College is offering a primer for this summer's Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival performances, “Much Ado About Nothing” and “Measure for Measure.” English Department ChairwomanMichelle Risdon began teaching the class a couple of summers ago.

“I would go to the plays at Sand Harbor, and while everyone was having a good time, I could hear people around me (asking questions about the play),” she said.

Each quarter-unit class consists of three meetings, including attending the performance at Incline Village.
“The first meeting is an introduction to the Renaissance, some tips on how to read Shakespeare because for some people, this maybe their first experience with the plays, so I give some tips on how to approach the language and some strategies for understanding it,” Risdon said.

The students have a couple of weeks to read the play before reconvening for a review and to discuss its meanings, issues and themes.

The festival often features two comedies, although last year it performed the historical “Richard III” and in 2007 a tragedy, “Othello.” Both of this year's plays are comedies, although “Measure for Measure,” which is rarely performed, is a black comedy, or what Shakespeare students call a “problem play.”

“The great thing about comedies is that they are really tragedies waiting to happen,” Risdon said. “They could be tragic, but things work out in the end. The tragedies have the same structure up to a point and then they take a tragic direction.”

“Much Ado About Nothing” is a more conventional Shakespeare comedy.
“There's a character who is feigning death, and that's always trouble in Shakespeare,” Risdon said. “When you pretend to be dead, people tend to want to kill themselves, too. So it could go bad, but it tends to work out in the comedies.”