About

The Shakespearean Crossdressers Support Group is an original play written by Cary Sasso. The play imagines an afterlife for Shakespeare’s five crossdressing characters: Julia from The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Portia from The Merchant of Venice, Imogen from Cymbeline, Viola from Twelfth Night, and Rosalind from As You Like It. Speaking sometimes in iambic pentameter verse and sometimes in prose, these reborn characters bicker, quote, quip, and break down, talking about rape culture, grooming, sexuality, gender, transness, and what it means to be a crossdresser, dropping a healthy helping of (metrically suitable) f-bombs along the way. Featuring a Claire’s-jewelry-wearing Julia, a devilishly bigoted Portia, a neurotic lesbian Viola, a genderfluid firecracker Rosalind, and an Imogen who’s just trying to make sure that nobody goes to jail for aggravated assault, this play is a love letter to the nerdy queer kid who was way to into their eighth grade Shakespeare unit.

Istaara Amjad writes for The Stanford Daily, “amidst the melodramatic rants and hilariously passive-aggressive arguments, the audience discovers empathy and understanding for the human stories at the heart of these plots — in a way no stale classroom conversation could. Could this be the essence of Shakespeare?”

Creative

Writer/Director - Cary Sasso

Assistant Director - Bridget Phillips

Producer - Lily Kerner

Stage Manager - Alister Sharp

Lighting Designer - Alix Fisher

Composer/Sound Designer - Sawyer Niehaus