Shakespeare Fest actors turn to words of Founding Fathers

Furthering a trend among Shakespeare theater companies across the country, actors from the Colorado Shakespeare Festival (CSF) will read the Declaration of Independence at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, July 3, at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The event – free and open to the public – will take place at Boulder on the Green near the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre.

The festival notes that, like Shakespeare, the signers of the Declaration loved language and understood the power of rhetoric. Scholars say that the Founding Fathers read and watched performances of several Shakespeare plays in the weeks and months leading up to the signing.

CSF's readers of the Declaration of Independence will include Timothy Orr, Anne Sandoe, Seth Panitch, Chuck Wilcox, Emily Van Fleet, Sam Sandoe, Ben Bonenfant and others.

Similar readings are promoted across the country by the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America; its 2011 conference will be hosted in January by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

"Last year, 16 theaters participated and we expect the number to grow this summer," said Philip Sneed, producing artistic director of the festival. "Using language not unlike Shakespeare's, our Founding Fathers wrote a country into being through the power of language.

"We believe that this reading is a way for us to contribute to our community's celebration of our nation's founding—and by making it free and open to the public, we invite everyone to join us, whether they're attending the festival that night or not."

The festival presents "The Fantasticks" and "King Lear" the evening of July 3. For information on tickets and the rest of the schedule, go to the CSF website.