The Sock ‘n’ Buskin Theatre Company is preparing for a busy upcoming 66th year at Carleton as it pulls together productions of the tragicomedy Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, the children’s fantasy Peter Pan and the smash-hit off-Broadway musical You’re in Town.

Lucy Bamforth, communications director for Sock ‘n’ Buskin, said the company usually stages a Shakespeare production, a contemporary play and a musical, in the fall, winter and spring respectively during its school-year run.  Last year, the company shunned off the contemporary portion only offering Much Ado About Nothing and the successful musical Evil Dead, so this year they may be trying to catch up.

The 1960s era play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern is not really Shakespeare, but follows  Hamlet’s buddies in a story of their own, which will be gracing Southam Hall’s Kailash Mital Theatre in November.

Bamforth added that because the theatre is a lecture hall during the day, the plays may be less elaborate than big company productions, but not less ambitious by any means.

“We are quite limited in what we can do that is not physically on the stage, but we’re really hoping that we can get the actors in Peter Pan to fly,” Bamforth said.  “But if not, we’ll improvise something.  The Buskin is really good at using whatever resources it has to make something work and that’s probably what we’re going to do with Peter Pan as well.”

The Sock ‘n’ Buskin, whose namesake derives from the sock used in Shakespearean comedies and the buskin or boot worn in tragedies, receives the majority of their funding through a student levy and ticket sales.  

Bamforth said the way the company stays successful though is through volunteer participation, and she said she hopes many students from all programs give a little bit of their time this year to help out in any way from acting to postering.

“It’s a really fantastic time,” she said. “Sock ‘n’ Buskin is a very youthful organization and we love having new faces and new participants, so we’re always looking out for new faces and trying to get people involved, and to come into the fold of our society.”