This Summer, It's ALL About Twins!

For our fourth annual Free in Lincoln Parks Tour, Flatwater Shakespeare Company will present The Comedy of Errors Shakespeare's greatest farce, opening June 12th and running four weekends, through July 6. 

Showtime at 7:00 PM. Visit www.flatwatershakespeare.org for more info.

Shakespeare has created a magical mix of mayhem, mischief, and mistaken identity. Two sets of twins, separated almost at birth, collide unexpectedly in the town of Ephesus and pandemonium reigns in this family fun comedy that we are setting in the Old West.

Flatwater Shakespeare brings you the play free of charge. A ten-dollar donation is suggested -- and in the parks that includes free ice cream donated by Ivanna Cone. Bring the whole family, folding chairs or blankets, a pet or two, and perhaps a picnic.

Join us in the parks and under the stars.

Performance Schedule

Thursday – Sunday, June 12-15: Lincoln Community Foundation Garden, 14^th & N Street (near the Korn Popper)

Thursday, June 19: Roberts Park, 56^th & Sumner Street

Friday, June 20: Irvingdale Park, 20^th & Van Dorn

Saturday, June 21: Belmont Park, 12^th & Judson

Sunday, June 22: Henry Park, 44^th & Prescott

Thursday, June 26: Antelope Park (near bandshell), 27^th & Capitol Parkway

Friday, June 27: Havelock Park, 64^th & Ballard

Saturday, June 28: Cooper Park, S. 6^th & D Streets

Sunday, June 29: Trago Park, N. 22^nd & U Street

Wednesday, July 2: Densmore Park, 6761 S. 14^th Street

Thursday, July 3: James Arthur Vineyards, 2001 W Raymond Rd, Raymond

Friday, July 4: NO PERFORMANCE

Saturday, July 5: Woods Park, O Street & 33^rd Street

Sunday, July 6: Bethany Park, 65^th & Vine Streets

Jazz Legend Delfeayo Marsalis Speaks on Ellington and Shakespeare

Jazz Trombonist Delfeayo Marsalis will present a free public lecture titled “Sweet Thunder: Ellington, Shakespeare and the Blues” on Monday, April 14 at 5 p.m. in the Love Library Auditorium, 102 Love Library, on the University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s city campus.

Marsalis will discuss how Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn translated Shakespearean characters and works into their 1957 jazz suite Such Sweet Thunder, his archival research into their compositional processes and his own musical reinterpretation of the suite, released in 2011 as Sweet Thunder: Duke and Shak.

Rather than merely recreating the classic work, which is comprised of musical depictions of characters from William Shakespeare’s plays, Marsalis took the work as a point of departure for his octet, creating fresh and new music inspired by the original suite.

“In some ways Sweet Thunder started for me in the seventh grade when I wrote a paper on my great uncle Wellman Braud, who played with Duke Ellington in the 1920s,” he said. “While attending the University of Louisville, I wrote a thesis paper on Ellington and Shakespeare. For the project, I went to the Smithsonian and studied the original copies of the music for Such Sweet Thunder.

“I didn’t want to just play what Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn wrote in 1957, but to imagine what they might have written if they were here today, more than 50 years later. To me this is jazz opera without the vocals, telling a story with the dramatic music.”

Marsalis is one of the top trombonists, composers and producers in jazz today. In January 2011, Delfeayo and the Marsalis family (Father Ellis and brothers Branford, Wynton and Jason) earned the nation’s highest jazz honor—a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Masters Award.

As a bandleader, he has earned wide acclaim for his first three albums as a leader: Pontius Pilate’s Decision (1992), Musashi (1997) and Minions Dominion (2006).

In 2004 he earned a Master of Arts in jazz performance at the University of Louisville and received a doctorate from New England College in 2009. He has composed more than 80 songs that help introduce kids to jazz and has led numerous workshops and masterclasses across the country for music students of all ages.

Marsalis will also be working with jazz students in the Glenn Korff School of Music during his visit to UNL.

Marsalis’s lecture is sponsored by the Hixson-Lied College of Fine and Performing Arts, the Glenn Korff School of Music, the Department of English, and the Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln.  The Flatwater Shakespeare Company is proud to be affiliated with this special event.

Love Library is located at 13th and R Streets on the University of Nebraska–Lincoln city campus.