We could not be more pleased with our first weekend of shows! In total, about 75 people came out to watch, between Saturday and Sunday, and the audience appeared to be having a great time.

When we started our company and held our first outdoor show, we presumed that people in our local Brooklyn community would come out, but the abysmal rain made it an impossible theory to test. This year, we can see that there is an audience for new mountings of old verse plays, and we couldn't be more thrilled.

Below are just a few photos from the production; you can see many more on Flickr.

If you're a backer already, we hope you know that it's thanks to you we can continue to produce theater in Brooklyn! If you're reading this and are considering backing our project, we appreciate your consideration. We are close to our goal, but we still need to reach it, and every single dollar pledged helps us tremendously. There are other expenses associated with producing the show, even beyond our $3,000 goal, which include:

- Verse coaching ($70)
- Sword rentals ($200)
- Printing programs ($80)
- Printing posters for the performances ($30)
- Supplies for the performance space (tape, ribbon, climbing rope, chalk, poster board) ($40)
- Additional costume items, laundry and repair of costumes ($110)
- Additional musician for the performances ($50)
- Water and first aid supplies for the actors ($30)

All of these costs add up to free theater for the Brooklyn community, so it's well worth it. We hope you will consider supporting our project and allow A Festival of Fools to continue producing great theater!

A quick update to say that our first production of "Life is a Dream" went incredibly well! Thanks to beautiful weather and a wonderful, engaged audience of well over 50 people, it was great fun. Later today we'll have production photos, but for now you can check out this review from writer Richard Grayson on his blog!

An excerpt: "On the page, we always found the plot confusing and pretty unbelievable although we took it as a metaphor, a philosophical argument disguised as a weird story. It's to the enormous credit of A Festival of Fools and this production's director, Amanda Thompson - and also in large part to the incredibly deft new translation (with gorgeous meter and natural rhyme) by LIU-Brooklyn professor G.J. Racz - that you don't think, "This makes no sense" as you watch the play."

Here's a shot of the pagoda from the ground, with our audience filling the first few rows.