Colonel Players presenting ‘The Desperate Housewives of Shakespeare’ Friday, April 8

Playwright William Shakespeare and several of his most notable female characters will be taking to the stage in the Whitley County High School cafeteria at 7 p.m. Friday and this time it will be the bard himself who suffers the tragedy in the Colonels Players performance of, “The Desperate Housewives of Shakespeare.”

All of the Desperate Housewives of Shakespeare and Tremblelance react as Lord Macbeth (Rachel Mullins) frets over the death of Duncan (Maddox Doan).

Theater Director David Sweet said the play involves Shakespeare’s murder and there are five possible suspects, including Cleopatra, Juliet, Lady McBeth, Titania from, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and Rosalind from, “Twelfth Night.”

“Shakespeare has been found: stabbed, poisoned, starved, choked, bitten by an asp, and even turned into a baardvark,” Sweet noted on the Colonels Players Facebook page, meaning each of the ladies had the means and motive to kill the author that has wrought so much tragedy upon each of them. “They are all accused.”

To help solve the murder, Detective Tremblelance, whom Sweet said is actually Shakespeare in disguise, has arrived on the scene.

Sweet said the play is in modern language so the audience will not have to worry about working their way through the unique language that Shakespeare used.

Sweet did say that the audience will see one aspect of traditional Shakespearian theater.

At the time that the plays were written, men played the women’s roles as women were not permitted to perform theater.

While multiple female students are in the cast and crew, Gavin Whitaker is taking the stage as Cleopatra.

Sweet said Friday’s performance will be the final run-through for the Colonels Players before they travel to Clay County on Saturday to compete in the Eastern Kentucky Dramatic Arts Festival.

The performance is 45 minutes.

“In a festival setting, we have to have everything on stage, acted and off stage in 45 minutes or we get disqualified from the competition,” Sweet explained.

Tickets are 5 p.m. with all proceeds going to help fund future Colonels Players productions.