The fifth annual Paper Bag Players Shakespeare in the Park has been cancelled due to a lack of performers.
Auditions for Much Ado About Nothing were held in the first weekend of May but failed to draw enough actors to cast the play. Another night of auditions was announced for last weekend, but attendance was once again low.
It's now too late in the year to prepare the show, said Paper Bag Players president Pam Milani, who planned to direct Much Ado About Nothing.
"Even if I was to get enough people now within the next week, we were planning for mid-July and we've run out of time for rehearsals."
Shakespeare in the Park, performed outdoors each July at Rodney Ridge, has quickly become a summer tradition for Yorkton and its local community theatre group.
"It's very disappointing. This was our fifth year, and it's the first year that we haven't been able to put it on," said Milani.
Shakespeare in the Park has relied heavily on a core group of dedicated actors over the last four years, many of them students who returned to the production during their summers off in Yorkton. Most of those student actors are spending this summer away from Yorkton and were unable to participate.
That means the theatre group has to "start over" with a new group of actors, said Milani, but the director doesn't think this will be the end of Shakespeare in the Park. The Players plan to attempt performing Much Ado About Nothing again next year.
"We'll have to keep our fingers crossed that next year goes a little bit better, because we'd hate to see it done for good."
Meanwhile, there will be no Paper Bag Players performance this summer, as it is too late to assemble even a smaller production. The Players' next event will be their Christmas Dinner Theatre in December.
