‘Twelfth Night’ is a Shakespearean hoot, and Prime Stage actors Carolyn Jerz, Malcolm MacKenzie, and Dana Babal have their hootin’ duds on. (photo courtesy of Prime Stage Theatre)

Why is Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night enjoying a new wave of popularity? Perhaps real life has become so bizarre that no contemporary comedy can match it, so we have to go back 417 years to find one. Anyhow, the play has been turning up on schedules regularly, and now Pittsburgh’s Prime Stage Theatre is doing Twelfth Night. This comedy has it all: shipwrecked twins, Sir Toby Belch (“Dost thou think because thou art virtuous,…

Prime Stage Theatre Makes A Statement With Shakespeare’s “Twelfth Night”

  For Carolyn Jerz, who plays Viola in Prime Stage Theatre’s production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, the Bard runs in her blood. “My dad is an English professor at Seton Hill University and he teaches a Shakespeare class,” she says. “So from a very young age he would just tell me whatever his students were learning in their college classes and read me Shakespeare plays and take me to see [it] done…

Prime Stage presents ‘Twelfth Night’ as season-ending production

Looking forward to seeing this! Set in the colorful world of Portugal and enhanced by traditional Portuguese fado music, “Twelfth Night” follows Viola as she disguises herself as a page boy to find her twin brother, but finds herself at the center of a love triangle, Prime Stage says. The oft-quoted line, “If music be the food of love, play on,” comes from the play. Carolyn Jerz, 17, of Greensburg,…

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The Ongoing Obsession with Shakespeare’s True Identity

I’ve never been all too keen on Shakespeare authorship conspiracy theories, and I find students often get distracted by their belief that the default way to get the “right answer” about literature is to look for connections between the author’s life and the author’s work. For example, I was disinterested in “Shakespeare in Love” because it depicted Will’s creative genius as if it were held hostage to events in his…

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Carolyn Jerz (Viola): Meet the cast of Twelfth Night! #PSTTwelfthNight

Meet the cast of Twelfth Night! (May 2-12, Prime Stage Theatre.) We asked Carolyn Jerz some questions about the show: Tell us a little bit about your character. Viola, a young noblewoman, finds herself alone in the land of Illyria after a shipwreck separates her from her twin brother Sebastian. She decides the safest plan is to dress as a boy and become a servant to the noble Duke Orsino– with…