Shakespeare BASH'd is a theatre company with one mission – to bring the Bard to bars. 

I'm exaggerating, of course, but not by much. BASH'd produces early modern English dramas in some of Toronto's most iconic pubs (The Imperial and the Victory Cafe are some recent venues), bringing a sense of raucous, booze-fueled fun to a cultural experience that – for many of us – has become uncomfortably highfalutin'. In fact, the experience of a BASH'd Shakespeare play sounds very much like what it must have been like for those plays' original audiences. The company does a lot with a little, relying on the power of the texts rather than over-the-top production values to make an emotional connection with their viewers. 

Recently, I was lucky enough to have a long conversation with James Wallis, co-artistic director of Shakespeare BASH'd and director of their latest production. Wallis and the rest of the company are staging a 1920s Parisian Twelfth Night at the Monarch Tavern later this month and it sounds like it's going to be a riot. Here's a little bit of what we can expect from this production.