Raptors Announce “Shakespeare In Jurassic Park” For Summer 2020
Serge Ibaka and Kyle Lowry will star in the Raptors’ production of Merchant of Venice, opening July 13
By Scott Slute
Toronto - MLSE announced this morning that for the last two weeks of July the Toronto Raptors will be putting on a production of The Merchant of Venice and will see the entire Raptors squad making up the cast. The production is a collaborative effort between MLSE and the Stratford Festival.
The production will star Serge Ibaka as Antonio, Kyle Lowry as Bassiano, and Fred VanVleet making his stage debut as the villainous Shylock. The play will be performed outside of the Scotiabank Arena which came to be known as Jurassic Park during the 2019 NBA playoffs. Social distancing measures will be in place and mask are encouraged.
“It was pretty intimidating taking on Shakespeare for my first ever play,” said Pascal “Spicy P” Siakam, who will be playing the role of Arragon, “I just have a small role in this play, but I think next summer I’m going to audition to play a bigger role!”
The play will be directed by Stratford Festival alum Seana McKenna and will see Nick Nurse running the play-by-play operations as stage manager. Marc Gasol is set to play Bassiano’s love interest Portia as the team decided to go the historic route and cast men in the women’s roles because the WNBA refuses to expand into Toronto. The team have been holding rehearsals in the OVO practice facility since May.
Nurse says he and McKenna have been working tirelessly behind the scenes since April to prepare for this show.
“Yes, we probably should be practicing for the return to play,” said Nick Nurse while eating an entire frozen lasagna, “But the boys have all worked really, really hard on this production and it isn’t fair to not let them show off all the work they did!”
As the city prepares to cheer on the team when the NBA resumes in Orlando at the end of the month, Raptor fans are equally excited to see the squad showing off their acting chops.
“Wallahi fam I’m reaching cuz for real tho I love Merchant of Venice,” says Raptors fan Trey Carter, “Shylock’s a bucktee but no lie the persecution he goes through in the play is very reflective on the current political climate we’re in and really highlights how historically ingrained the mistreatment of BIPOC people is within white culture. Ay who’d you say you write for again? Can you plug my IG?”
The team announced that after play concludes in Florida, they will begin rehearsal on their fall production of Hamlet, which will see Raptor’s super fan Nav Bhatia in the cameo role of Fortinbras.
Scott Slute is the Editor in Chief at The Toronto Harold