Actors' Gang Summer Shakespeare in the Park, 2023 Edition

Every weekend in August, the Actors’ Gang Theater in Culver City (adjacent to West L.A.) mounts a fun, free Shakespeare in the Park show that’s family friendly and usually a mashup between a Shakespeare play and other familiar pop culture characters/properties.

We’ve seen every production since it began in 2006, initially taking our kids. Past productions include “Harry Potter Hamlet,” “Much Ado About Avengers,” “Toy Story Tempest,” “Mighty Morphin Midsummer's Night Dream,” and “Titus the Clownicus.” They’re about an hour in length, with plenty of comedy, audience/children participation, and frequent musical/dance interludes. (Until a few years ago, every production included a Michael Jackson “Thriller” dance sequence featuring the whole company.) And like most Actors’ Gang productions, they’re usually edgy, with layers of comedy to entertain both children and adults. The productions use much of Shakespeare’s language, with the Shakespeare characters cleverly melded with their pop culture counterparts.

This year’s show was “Much Ado About Pooh,” as Christopher Robin, Pooh, Tigger and Eeyore visit Owl and his family in the Hundred Acre Wood. For those familiar with the play, Pooh and Piglet fill the roles of Claudio and Hero (as best friends rather than romantic partners), while Tigger and Rabbit are Benedick and Beatrice. (Eeyore plays the role of the troublemaking Don John.) Though there is trickery and deceit, by the end of the show, balance is restored, and the show’s narrator concludes with a short lesson about the importance of communication, forgiveness and understanding.

As I said, it’s a fun, entertaining show—nearby businesses and Culver City are often name-checked. And at this year’s show, the masquerade scene opens with a dance to “Pink Shoe Laces” that has recently become a popular TikTok dance challenge (I’ve known the song since I was a kid, since we had it in the house on a 45 record!). Prior to the show, they also told the audience that the day’s secret word was “mischief” and that everyone should scream when someone uttered it.

It’s great fun for children and adults—in fact, even though our kids feel they’ve outgrown it, my wife and I continue to go every year. Afterwards, we had a lovely late breakfast down the street at a restaurant in the flatiron-stye Culver Hotel, now a boutique hotel and historic landmark. (Since the MGM lot (now Sony) is located nearby, it housed many Hollywood stars in its heyday. It also was where the little people cast in the Wizard of Oz stayed.)

The show runs Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. through August 27.

I should note that Actor Tim Robbins, one of the founders of the Actors’ Gang and currently its artistic director, was on hand the Sunday we attended as well. He provided a welcome, using the occasion to express support for the SAG-AFTRA strike. Robbins founded the Actors’ Gang in 1981 while a student at UCLA, during a period I was there. In fact, my now-wife and I caught many of their shows when they performed in other parts of L.A., including Hollywood, before settling in Culver City. In January, they re-mounted a play they had performed at UCLA, “Ubu the King”—after the show, I was able to chat with Robbins briefly and tell him I remembered the original UCLA production!