Theatre News Wire

Writers Theatre, under the leadership of Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma and Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Artistic Director Braden Abraham, continues its 2025/26 Season with a musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's As You Like It, adapted by Shaina Taub and Laurie Woolery, with music and lyrics by Shaina Taub. This production is directed by Braden Abraham, with music direction by Michael Mahler and choreography by Erin Kilmurray. As You Like It will run October 30 - December 14, 2025 in the Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Theatre at 325 Tudor Court, Glencoe.

As You Like It at Writers Theatre

Facing exile at home, Orlando, Duke Senior, his daughter Rosalind and niece Celia seek safety and refuge in the Forest of Arden. Lost amidst the trees, these wounded souls end up finding a community of acceptance and transformational love, where all are welcomed and embraced. Featuring an original folk-pop score by Shaina Taub (Tony Award-winning composer of Suffs), this musical adaptation of Shakespeare's classic is an immersive dream-like tale of faithful friends, feuding families and chance encounters.?

"This will be a raucous, immersive As You Like It, brought to the stage by a wildly charismatic and daring group of Chicago actors and musicians," said Braden Abraham. "Laurie Woolery and Shaina Taub's Arden is a world I want to live in.?It's an invigorating, galvanizing play about the pleasures of falling in love and the necessity of forgiveness."?

AS YOU LIKE IT NOTES OF INTEREST

• As You Like It marks the professional Midwest premiere of this adaptation.
• As You Like It is directed by Alexandra C. and John D. Nichols Artistic Director Braden Abraham, whose previous Writers Theatre directing credits include Translations and Eurydice.
• As You Like It premiered during the 2017-18 season of The Public Theater's free Public Works programming. The production ran for five free performances, September 1-5, at the Delacorte Theater. It also featured over 200 actors and community members alongside equity actors. The musical returned to The Delacorte Theater in Central Park in August 2022.
• As part of the 2023 Obie Awards, Laurie Woolery (Director) and Shaina Taub (Music and Lyrics) received a Special Citation for their collaboration on the adaptation of As You Like It at The Public Theater.
• In 2024, Shaina Taub made history by becoming the first woman to win both the Tony Awards for Best Original Score and Best Book of a Musical in the same season for her Broadway debut Suffs. That same year, she also earned the Outer Critics Circle Awards for Outstanding Book of a Musical and Outstanding New Score. Earlier in her career, Taub was recognized with the prestigious Kleban Prize in 2019 for Most Promising Lyricist, the Fred Ebb Award in 2017 for excellence in musical theater songwriting and the Jonathan Larson Grant in 2014 for emerging musical theater writers.
• William Shakespeare's As You Like It is a pastoral comedy believed to have been written in 1599 and first published in the First Folio in 1623. The play has been adapted for radio, film and musical theatre. Some notable adaptations include the 1936 film adaptation with Laurence Olivier (his first Shakespeare film), a 1978 BBC adaptation with Helen Mirren as Rosalind and a 2006 film directed by Kenneth Branagh, starring Bryce Dallas Howard and Kevin Kline who won a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie for his performance as Jaques.