'Taming of the Shrew', 'The Tamer Tamed' highlights Shakespeare in Clark Park's summer series

PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) -- Clark Park will play host to a Shakespeare classic, and an update to it later this month.

"'Taming of the Shrew,' it's one of Shakespeare's funniest, most raucous comedies,' says director Kathryn Macmillan. "Two unlikely lovers, Katarina or Kate and Petruchio, come together with a very unlikely courtship."

Act 2 will be under the direction of Ang Bey.

"'The Tamer Tamed' is a contemporary response play to 'The Taming of the Shrew,'" says Bey.

"Shakespeare in Clark Park is one of the great traditions of a Philadelphia summer," says Macmillan.

"They're often fun, high octane," says Bey.

The show takes place in 'the bowl' among Clark Park's nine-acres.

"We can attract anywhere from 700 to 1,200 people," says Macmillan.

'The Taming' will take on two-time eras. Act One begins in the late 1960's.

"Just before explosions in civil rights," says Macmillan.

Act 2 is set in the 1990's.

"John Fletcher's play, 'The Tamer Tamed,' was written a generation after Shakespeare's," says Macmillan, "The world explodes into music and chaos and color."

And the play revisits debates around gender liberation.

"Kate is the shrew, which in the modern world certainly has some problems with that," says Macmillan.

Fletcher flips the script by letting women tame men.

"Learn all the ways that people might change or stay the same," says Macmillan.

Tickets are free and donations are accepted.

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Clark Park in University City

Chester Avenue & South 43rd Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104

'The Taming!' will play nightly July 27-31

Tickets are FREE, donations accepted, registration required