Shakespeare Festival: Love’s Labour’s Lost

“For where is any author in the world teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye?”

Start your summer with a frothy, funny celebration of love and learning. In the bucolic Kingdom of Navarre, four attractive young men make a pact to swear off romance and focus on academia … just minutes before the four loves of their lives wander by. Shakespeare’s side-splitting comedy about the struggle to balance heart and head is the perfect ode to CSF’s academic surroundings.

Plot Synopsis

The King of Navarre desires an all-male “academe” where he and his courtiers (Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine) will spend three years studying and fasting—and avoiding the company of women, forbidding them within a mile of court. The men reluctantly agree, although Berowne questions the wisdom of the endeavor.

The constable Dull delivers a letter to the King from Don Armado, a Spanish knight, reporting a relationship between the clown Costard and the dairymaid Jacquenetta. The King sentences Costard to prison. Armado confesses to his page, Moth, his own love for Jacquenetta.

The sequestered world of men is soon tested by the arrival of the Princess of France, her ladies (Rosaline, Maria and Katherine) and her courtier Boyet on a political mission from the Princess’ father, who is ill. The Princess criticizes the King’s discourteous plan to lodge her in a field rather than at court, but he refuses to relent.

Meanwhile, the men’s oaths prove fragile as they fall in love with the women. Armado promises Costard his liberty if he will deliver his love letter to Jacquenetta. Berowne also gives Costard a letter for Rosaline, but Costard accidentally switches them delivering them to the wrong women. Two scholars, Holofernes and Nathaniel, advise Jacquenetta on what to do.

The King and his men observe each other confessing their love and decide to woo the ladies. The women receive sonnets and gifts, but mock the mens’ conventional efforts. Boyet overhears the men planning to dress as Russians to entertain the women and she informs the women accordingly—thereby allowing the women to trick the men, instead. Identities revealed, the men own up to their absurd errors.

Holofernes, Nathaniel, Costard, Moth and Don Armado present a pageant of the Nine Worthies. Costard accuses Armado of impregnating Jacquenetta. Their fight is interrupted by Marcade with news from the French court that changes the expected ending of the play.

Please note: The Colorado Shakespeare Festival does not admit children under 5 to any performances.