Stefanie Cohen, The Wall Street Journal

June 18, 2014

For Hamish Linklater, playing Benedick in Shakespeare in the Park’s “Much Ado About Nothing” feels less like being an actor and more like being an athlete.

“It feels like suiting up for the Yankees,” the tall, dark-haired Mr. Linklater said of pulling on his knee-high leather boots. “It feels like I’m playing for the Shakespeare fans, and you wanna deliver the title for them. You wanna play well for the home team.”

The audience, which lines up hours ahead of time for free tickets to the outdoor Delacorte Theater, is markedly different from the typical theater crowd, he said.

“It really feels like you are playing for fans instead of people who shelled out $200 and are sitting back, rightly, and saying, ‘Be worth my while.’ ” […continued]

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