Director John Pike on THE COMPLETE WORKS OF WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE (abridged)

What happens when you combine all 37 of Shakespeare’s plays with the 1960s TV show Laugh-In?

Why, you get The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged], the second installment of LTM’s 2021 season and the third LTM production for director John Pike.

The comedy begins with three dubious Shakespearean actors trying to do justice to The Bard’s anthology of plays. That is, until they can’t.

“These three guys really set out to present a significant evening and realize they don’t know how to do it,” says John. “So they’re constantly adlibbing trying to figure out how to convince the audience they really do know what they’re doing.” But the audience knows better.

John describes the play as a riff on Shakespeare. The actors create a whirlwind of motion filled with gags, un-Shakespearean props and cultural references both old and new. “It’s more like a Vaudeville than a real play. It’s about the routines that the actors have to do.”

John’s nearly eight-year association with LTM (including Shrek and Fiddler on the Roof) is just one stop along a theatrical journey that began early in life. “My dad had a large collection of Broadway cast albums that he played and I knew the lyrics to many shows by age five.”

By the time he was in grade school, John was acting in plays and musicals. But real life took hold when he entered Wake Forest University on his way to becoming a lawyer. Shortly afterwards he realized his true calling and changed his major to Theater.

“After graduation I worked in a bank during the day and took various musical directing and other theatre jobs in the evening,” says John. Then it was off to Yale University to pursue a master’s degree in Theatre Administration and Dramaturgy.

“Upon getting my MFA I was hired by Goodspeed as Artistic Associate where I oversaw several initiatives such as season selection, the musical theater library [and] publication of Show Music magazine,” he says.

John’s 17 years at Goodspeed also afforded him the opportunity to interview and learn from the likes of Stephen Sondheim, Andrew Lloyd Webber and some soon-to-be-famous directors. “I got to watch them direct and see how they made decisions,” he says. “I was in the right place at the right time.”

That generalist background laid the groundwork for the roles he occupies today as director, musical director and faculty member at The Hartt School.

More importantly, it informs his collaborative approach to directing. “A director needs to know a little bit about lighting, about set construction, costuming, sound, as well as being able to direct actors,” says John. “You just have to have at least a knowledge of how it all works.”

Asked whether the audience can expect a unique interpretation of Shakespeare, he says, “I don’t think this production is going to look like any other production.” The set design, for instance, is not typical. “Most of the productions use some sort of Elizabethan background.” But LTM patrons will find themselves looking up at a whimsical scene filled with gigantic books of Shakespeare’s plays.

And what about that connection to TV’s Laugh-In? All John will say is, “The books are just not going to stand there.”

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare [abridged] runs August 6th to the 22nd and stars Aleksei Sandals, Bobby Schultz and Lucas Veo.