'Love's Labour's Lost,' two other shows where dining is part of the entertainment

Maybe I should have left a tip?

The eight actors who perform "Love's Labour's Lost" at Shake & Bake Theatre work so hard throughout the show serving dinner and pouring wine it seems criminal not to leave a little something on the table.

And it’s not the only show around where food is part of the entertainment. At "Oklahoma!", running at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn, chili is served between acts along with the cornbread a couple of the actresses whip up in the first scene, adding to the sense of community that’s so integral to Daniel Fish’s re-imagining of the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic.

At "Lewiston/Clarkson," Samuel D. Hunter's play about the descendants of explorers Lewis and Clark at Rattlestick Playwrights Theater, audiences can purchase a chicken supper to be eaten during the intermission between the two plays. Director Davis McCallum says that the plays have been framed "as a kind of town hall meeting, as you might find in a VFW hall or a church basement in a community like Lewiston, Idaho, or Clarkson, Washington, where the plays are set." 

The audience can buy the box dinner -- roast chicken, slaw, potato salad -- for $17, or choose to bring their own food. "People sit at communal tables," says McCallum, "and often find themselves striking up conversations with strangers.” 

But the food at Shake & Bake, in an open run at a small space on Gansevoort Street, is a full eight-course meal, from smoked salmon canapés to Cheetos-dusted mac and cheese (in honor of Costard the fool's love of the cheesy snack) to vanilla panna cotta, with plenty of wine along the way. The menu has been created to enhance the action in the Shakespeare comedy, so when the men disguise themselves as Muscovites, tiny tumblers of borscht appear.

"We wanted the food to inform the drama and the drama to inform the food," say David Goldman, the chef who created the menu with co-developers, Victoria Rae Sook (who choreographs and plays the Princess of France in the production) and director Dan Swern. Basically, he says, "we just read the play to see where the language took us."

The food service is choreographed as carefully as the dances, with the actors seamlessly delivering lines as they clear the salad course or refill water glasses. The potential for disaster is great, though so far, says Goldman, the worse that has happened is a broken glass or plate.

But having been in the restaurant business for years, he recognizes the perils and says he worked with the actors on ways to turn what could be an embarrassing moment for a patron (those brisket tacos served during intermission are messy!) into "something that's fun." And if there's a real mishap, he says, "we've got brooms and mops hidden away."

Goldman says there's more down the road, mentioning the meat pies in "Titus Andronicus" and a few possibilities for "Romeo and Juliet," plus he notes a couple of playwrights have expressed interest in creating pieces specifically for the company. 

In any case, even without tips, it's all good news for potential cast members -- especially those who have already supplemented their incomes with that most time-honored "between jobs" occupation for actors, waiting tables.