The Gustavus Adolphus College Department of Theatre and Dance is proud to present Love’s Labour’s Lost in a contemporary take on the classic Shakespeare play.

Love’s Labour’s Lost is the college’s January Interim 2016 production. Rehearsals began in J­Term as an intensive class that met Monday through Friday for eight hours a day.

Associate professor in Theatre and Dance and Latin American, Latino, and Caribbean Studies (LALACS) Henry MacCarthy directed the play.

Showing over two weekends, the play is a musical adaptation of the original.

“I love to work with music,” MacCarthy said. “I find it very interesting how the music dictates the tempo and rhythm of the dramatic action.”

The show’s costumes were designed by Elsa Larsen, a Junior Theatre major with a Costume Design and Technology focus and a minor in Arts Administration. Larsen was assigned the costume designing for this show as her 370 class in April 2015. Over the summer, she read through the script and analyzed the characters to get a feel for how she wanted to dress the actors.

“There were certain aspects of the characters that I really latched onto when I was designing their costumes,” Larsen said.

As the play is the 2016 J­Term production, the costumes were created in part by amateur workers with a large variety of skill levels in the Costume Shop during January. Some of the students who were making the costumes had never touched a sewing machine before.

“I dreamed big,” Larsen said. “But I had to tone it back for reality’s sake.”

Using old­spoken text, Love’s Labour’s Lost incorporates a contemporary setting by turning the show into a rock musical with very modern music. This makes the play a good introduction to Shakespeare’s work for people who may feel intimidated by the name “Shakespeare.”

It can also be refreshing for people who have seen and enjoy Shakespeare’s work to see the show adapted to a more modern setting and time period.

“I’ve seen a lot of growth from all of the actors,” MacCarthy said. “They really connected with the play and their characters. It is a really entertaining story and I think it’s very funny.”

Sam Keillor, a Junior Theatre and Social Studies Teaching double major, portrays the character Berowne, who is known as the “merry mocking lord.”

Like the other main male characters, Berowne has renounced women and is instead in an academic pursuit of what it means to be a man. Though, Keillor’s character has a more cynical mindset than some of his peers.

“This is a fun and entertaining show that still adheres to the Gustavus Theatre and Dance Department’s style of having productions based on issues of inequality and social justice,” Keillor said. “It is the most happy, enjoyable show of this nature that I have done so far. It’s both entertaining and reflective in a way that I think a musical should be.”

While the show is based on Shakespeare’s original play, some elements have been altered both to fit a contemporary style and to make the current play unique.

The roles of the main women in the play have been shifted to be more visible and more central than they were in the original.

Shakespeare wrote the script as a comedy and this adaptation also brings in modern humor that is more relatable to audience members.

“I’m really glad that this show, as an adaptation of a Shakespeare play, has kept the ideas and the basic structure of the show intact while adding in modern elements that make it relevant to today,” Keillor said.

Showtimes are Feb. 19, 20, 26, and 27 at 8 p.m. and Feb. 21 and 28 at 2 p.m. in the Anderson Theatre.

“It’s going to be a beautiful show and I’m glad I got to be a part of it,” Larsen said.