On March 10th, 2020 the Highland Arts Theatre was opening its already-sold-out run of Shakespeare’s iconic comedy, As You Like It. The adaptation by Wesley J. Colford followed in the theatre’s tradition of flipping the Renaissance script into a full blown musical, filled with familiar songs from a particular decade. One of their first hits was Dream, the 1950’s musical based on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, soon followed by Disco Nights, adapted from Twelfth Night and stuffed with chart toppers from the 1970’s. After several encore runs of the first two homegrown musical hits, it was time for the next entry to the growing tradition.

Colford conceived a trippy psychedelic musical comedy, once again borrowing from the bard’s show by the same title: As You Like It, set in the late 1960’s and chock- full of magical forests, hippies, and hi-jinx. The tickets were snatched up in an instant and the week of shows were off to a strong start.

Then came COVID-19. The show was originally postponed for two weeks, and eventually indefinitely.

“The plan always was to bring it back at some point, but the timeline for that point became increasingly muddier,” said the show’s playwright Wesley Colford. “At first it was when will this cast all be available again, then it was when will we be able to have more than 2 people on stage, then it became if we can only let 50 people in the building, we can’t do a show with a 20-person cast. Eventually it had to be shelved, and luckily this summer proved to be the perfect time for it to finally make a comeback and finish strong.”

Despite closing early, the 2020 production was still able to be considered by jurors for the Theatre Nova Scotia Robert Merritt Awards, and this previous winter, two of the show’s creators were honoured with nominations for their work: Lesley MacLean for “Outstanding Choreography” and Colford for “Outstanding Adaptation by a Nova Scotian”.

The show is finally making its return to the HAT mainstage this summer and this time tickets are free of charge thanks to the charity’s Radical Access Program, though there is a suggested donation of $25 in exchange for a tax-deductible receipt. The show is directed by Colford, with Music Direction from Ciaran MacGillivray, and choreography by Lesley MacLean.