Author: Karen Greene

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Early Lessons, Part 2: Pay Attention to Unit Pricing

Click here for Part 1 in this series. This post contains affiliate links.  If you make a qualifying purchase after clicking a link, we may receive a percentage of the purchase price.

My mother always took us grocery shopping when we were small.  By the time I was 8, she would say she either needed to bring a calculator or me.  I would keep a running tally of everything in the basket in my head and I would calculate unit pricing, also in my head, whenever she needed, without losing track of the running tally.  I like math 🙂

An Overview of Unit Pricing

Unit pricing is the single most important piece of information you need in order to truly comparison shop.  Is the 40 oz jar of peanut butter a better deal than the 16 oz jar of peanut butter?  The only way to know is to know the unit pricing.

To find the unit pricing, you divide the price of the product by the number of units in the product in order to find the price of a single unit.  In the peanut butter example, let’s say the 40 oz jar of peanut butter is $7.50 and the 16 oz jar of peanut butter is $3.00.  Which one is a better deal?  $7.50 / 40 = $0.19 / oz.  $2.75 / 16 = $0.17 / oz.  The smaller jar of peanut butter is the better deal. (I made up prices; the real price on Amazon is much better than this, if you are an Amazon Prime member.  The ad below is an affiliate link.)

Two things make unit pricing easier today than it was when I was a child.  First, 18 states plus the US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia now have labeling laws that require the price posted on the shelf to include unit pricing.

Florida requires unit pricing on shelf tags. In this case, the price per ounce is in the orange box. The units appear below the price.

Major online realtors, including Walmart and Amazon, have unit pricing listed on the food items for sale on their site.  If you are lucky enough to live somewhere with unit pricing on the shelves, you don’t need to calculate it yourself.

Second, if you’re carrying around a smart phone, you have a calculator on you at all times.  There’s no need to remember a calculator or to do the math in your head.  You’ve got an app for that!

When do You Need to Calculate Unit Pricing?

If you live somewhere that does not include unit pricing on the shelf labels, you have no choice.  If you want to know the unit pricing, you must calculate it yourself.  Even if you live somewhere that has unit pricing on the shelves, there are times when you will need to calculate the unit pricing yourself.

What is a Unit?

In the peanut butter example, I used the number of ounces in the jars as the unit.  Weight and volume are the most logical units to use for many, but not all products.  Do I care how much my paper towels weigh?  Not at all.  How many sheets do they have?  Or how many square feet?  These units make more sense.

The unit price on the shelf may be calculated using a unit that does not make sense to you personally.  Maybe you want to buy a certain number of servings of fruit and you want to compare the price per serving of apples and grapes.  You would need to figure out how much a single serving costs in order to compare.  A serving of grapes might be 1 ounce, but you may count a whole apple as a serving regardless of its weight.  Or maybe the paper towels are labeled per square feet and that seems like nonsense to you because you’re going to take a sheet at a time, whether you are using a smaller select-a-size sheet or full size sheet.  If this is your situation, you will have to calculate the unit price yourself.

Similar products may be labeled in an inconsistent manner.  As in the photo below, tea might be labeled by the number of tea bags in the box (right) or the weight of the product (left).  In the photo, the price alone might make you think the loose tea is much more expensive.  However, if you convert the tea bags to a per ounce unit pricing, you see that the tea bags are the more expensive option ($3.48 / 3.3 ounces in the box = $1.05 / ounce).

In order to compare inconsistently labeled products, you will need to calculate unit pricing based on the same unit for all of your options.  Choose the unit that makes the most sense for how you use the product and do the math!

Sales and Coupons

Sales flyers never have unit pricing in them, so if you are looking at sales flyers before you go to the store, you may want to calculate unit pricing as part of your planning process.  Once in the store, the signs with sale prices do not always include unit pricing to reflect the sales price.  If you have a coupon, you will need to subtract the coupon from the advertised price before dividing: (Price – Coupon) / Units.

A Preview of Things to Come

The next four columns in this series will all relate to and rely upon the idea of  unit pricing.  The bottom line is you need to be able to make a true comparison of the cost of the products you buy and the best way to do that is the unit pricing.  Since you have a calculator in your pocket or purse, it isn’t hard to calculate unit pricing.  It may take a little time to calculate when you first start doing it, but some of the strategies coming up will reduce how often you need to make the calculation.  Stay tuned!

Click here for Part 3: Keep a Price Book.

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Early Lessons, Part I: The Why

This post contains affiliate links.  If you make a qualifying purchase after clicking a link, we may receive a percentage of the purchase price.

Over the years, I have waxed and waned in my practice of the various strategies I’ve learned regarding saving money on groceries.  When I have money, but not much time, I don’t maximize these strategies.  When I have both time and money, I don’t maximize these strategies.  When I have time, but not much money, I must maximize these strategies.  At the moment, I find myself in the latter category, and so I am reminding myself of the things I already knew.  I thought I would share these things with you, to adopt or not, if it works for you.

Why Focus on Food?

This poster is World War I-era propaganda, aimed at those who were at home, rather than in the battlefield.  Governments across the world encouraged their citizens to economize in many areas, as a way of supporting the war effort.

If you are looking to save money in your overall budget, victory starts in the kitchen.  Food is the third largest household expenditure in the United States.

Housing and Transportation costs may be reduced, but they tend to be sunk costs.  If you own a home, it will take time to sell and buy or rent a less expensive place.  If you rent, the penalties incurred in breaking a lease may be more than you would pay to stay through the end of the lease.  Reducing transportation costs might mean moving closer to work, buying a new vehicle, or figuring out ride sharing options.  Since Housing and Transportation are sunk costs, it may take weeks or months to work out lower-cost options.

In the chart above, the amount spent on food includes both dining out and food at home (groceries), which includes purchase of both raw ingredients and prepared foods.  This chart breaks the food budget down into the types of food purchased, based on the level of employment in a household.

Households where all adults were employed spent about half of their food budgets at restaurants, whereas households where a primary shopper was unemployed spend only 36 percent. Households where all adults were employed spent 10 percentage points less of their food budgets on non-ready-to-eat foods compared to households where a primary shopper was not employed. The statistics for this chart are from the ERS report Consumers Balance Time and Money in Purchasing Convenience Foods, released on June 27, 2018.

This chart demonstrates why it makes sense to start with food if you want to reduce your budget.  You have multiple options for food: eating out, purchasing prepared foods, or purchasing raw ingredients and preparing food yourself.  Since food is perishable, you make a daily decision on what to eat. Therefore, the financial impact of changing your food decisions can be seen in a matter of days.

What’s coming in this series

The strategies discussed focus on grocery shopping for raw ingredients.  This is almost always the least expensive way to eat.  However, the overall goal is food that (1) tastes good and (2) promotes health (3) at the lowest possible cost, with an eye to the (4) time it takes to prepare food and clean-up afterwards.  The least expensive option possible is not always going to meet the first two goals and is likely to increase the time spent on cooking and cleaning up.

Almost everything I know about saving money on groceries, I learned from either my mother or The Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn (Amazon affiliate link).  When I was growing up, our family did not have much money.  My mother kept a strict grocery budget and usually took her children with her when she shopped.  We learned many shopping lessons by osmosis!

I lived with my parents until I married my first husband, six weeks shy of my twenty-second birthday.  We did not have much money either, so I was always looking for ways to save money.  It was at this time that I found The Tightwad Gazette, which taught me systemization in a way that my mother had not.

The strategies I learned from my mother and from The Tightwad Gazette will help you determine the lowest cost of any food items you wish to purchase.  It’s up to you to weigh the monetary costs against the taste, health, and time factors impacting your life.

Click here for Part 2: Pay Attention to Unit Pricing

Click here for Part 3: Keep a Price Book

Click here for Part 4: Shop at Multiple Stores

Click here for Part 5: Use Coupons? Not Anymore

Click here for Part 6a: Calculating the Cost of Homemade: Ingredient Costs

Click here for Part 6b: Calculating the Cost of Homemade: Recipe Costs

Click here for Part 6c: Calculating the Cost of Homemade: Where to Start with Cooking

Click here for Part 6d: Calculating the Cost of Homemade: Putting it All Together

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Daily Bread

In my post  last week, I told several stories about the Greenes and food.  All those stories were extraordinary food experiences.  Like in every household the day-to-day and the celebratory aren’t quite the same thing.  We are a household of two and the two of us have such different food requirements that we rarely eat the same food as each other at any given meal.

I am a lifelong, born and raised, lacto-ovo vegetarian.  Lacto = milk and ovo = eggs.  This means I eat animal products including all dairy, eggs, and honey, but I do not eat any actual animals.  I do not eat any poultry, pork, beef, lamb, seafood, or insects.

Chris, on the other hand, is a dedicated carnivore, though he rarely eats any meat other than poultry.  He eats very little dairy and limits (but does not entirely exclude) how much gluten he eats.

Due to our disparate food choices, in the many years we’ve been together, I have rarely cooked dinner for both of us to sit down and eat that meal.  Instead, I tend to cook for the freezer.    I will cook a meal for one or the other of us, package and label it, and put it into the freezer.  I will often spend a day or afternoon cooking multiple meals and filling the freezer.  When we want to eat, we either take one of my homemade dinners out of the freezer and heat it up, or we make ourselves a quick meal, like a sandwich.

This is a fairly empty freezer for us!  The freezer is a 14 cubic foot freestanding model.  Our refrigerator is an 18 cubic foot unit with no built-in freezer.

The combination of our unusual daily needs and our history of regular entertaining impacts the way we approach shopping for food.  Over the years I’ve developed a significant pantry.  I’m usually shopping to replenish the pantry or for fresh foods.  We shop at Costco rather more than might be expected from a two-person household.  We go to the local grocery store only for a very few items, most of which aren’t available at Costco in a quantity that we can reasonably use.  Since we love foods from a wide variety of cuisines, I also visit stores that carry specialty ingredients of those cuisines, as needed.  I order spices online because I can get a wider variety, at a better price, and excellent quality than from any one local source.

I strongly believe that cooking from scratch is the least expensive option overall, that the quality of homemade food is better than prepared foods, that homemade food is more delicious than prepared foods, and that meeting our dietary requirements is easier when cooking at home than when we purchase foods prepared either at a restaurant or at the grocery store.  Due to the craziness of our lives over the last several years, I’ve been cooking less than I’d like.  Getting back to cooking more is one of our highest priorities.

Over the next several weeks, I will be writing a series of posts going into more detail on our approach to food.  I’ll reveal the details of our pantry, share what we’re cooking, and talk about the cost of food.  I plan to publish these posts weekly, on Mondays.  Stay tuned!

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Chez Verde

Once upon a time, Chris and Karen met because of food.  My aunt was preaching at a church on the other side of town.  After the service, the church had a potluck and she sat at the same table as Chris, who was visiting the church for the first time.  After dinner she told Chris she was going to a different church on the other side of town for dessert because her husband was the pastor over there.  Chris followed her because of the paltry dessert selection at the first church.

When they arrived, my aunt made a beeline for me and announced, not quietly and with Chris only a few steps behind her, “I’m back and I brought a man.”

At the time, my first husband and I had been separated for six months and I had an attorney to represent me in a divorce, but the process was going slowly.  I rolled my eyes and replied, “I’m not looking for a man.  The last thing I need right now is another man.”

Three weeks later, Chris and I went on our first official date, to a wonderful restaurant in the North End of Boston.  Chris ordered two plates of Butternut Squash Ravioli.  I thought he was going to take one order home, but he ate them both.

Two years later, we moved to Florida.  We quickly found a church and needed a way to get to know people.  I wasn’t working at the time, so started hosting ‘At Home’ events every Tuesday evening.  The name came from a 19th century practice.  Women would pick an afternoon to be home.  They had small cards, like a business card, with their address and the times they were at home.  They would give these cards to others as an open invitation to stop by for tea during the times listed on the cards.

In our iteration, the invitation was for Tuesday evenings to accommodate those working outside the home.  The invitation was open to everyone in the household, not just women.  I asked people to let me know by Monday afternoon if they knew they would be there so I would have a way to judge how much food to make, but made it clear that they were still welcome to come at the last minute.  Dinner was ready by 5 pm and people were welcome to come any time and stay until midnight.  They were also welcome to stop and pick up a to go container if they didn’t have time to stay.  Some weeks we had 3 people; some weeks we had 20.  We ended these events a year after we moved because I was working full time.

When we got married 10 months after moving to Florida, I catered our wedding, with help from family and friends.  A month before the wedding, Chris and I made and canned 68 quarts of spaghetti sauce, several quarts of which we used for the wedding.  We started with 200 pounds of plum tomatoes, purchased from a local wholesale company that usually sells to restaurants.  Once you turn the tomatoes into sauce, you add the seasonings and cook down the sauce to thicken it and develop flavor.  This takes at least 4 hours.  It took us 3 days to cook all the sauce.  We took turns sleeping so someone was always available to stir the sauce so it wouldn’t burn.

Chris and Karen standing behind the table holding their bride and groom cakes. Karen is tying an apron around her waist.
How many brides don an apron at their weddings?! I made the cakes; after the formal cake cutting and feeding each other, I cut all the cake to serve to the guests. Chris helped plate and distribute the cake.
In this picture, you can also see the remnants of the buffet dinner behind us.

We bought our house a couple years after we got married.  We came up with the idea of turning the family room into a cafe themed dining space.  We thought we would develop a menu of our favorite dishes.  When we invited people over, we’d give them this menu as the invitation and they could pick out (in advance) whatever they would like to eat.  We named this cafe Chez Verde — “Chez”, which you’ve probably seen as a name on many a fancy (or want-to-be fancy) French restaurant, is a French proposition which can translate as “at” or “to” or “among” and “Verde” is the Italian word for green.  So Chez Verde = At the Greene’s.  (We have lots of fun with green puns in this house.)

The menu as invitation idea and the original details of Chez Verde fell by the wayside when I went to law school.  However, we still tend to refer to our kitchen as Chez Verde and the chalk board Chris built for the cafe still hangs in our kitchen.

the chalkboard that Chris built. Chez Verde is written across the top. Below that is written weeks of 8/5 - 8/18. Along the left side is a list with a letter for the day of the week and a number for the date. Some dates have notations of events. Below the list of dates, two boxes drawn in chalk contain recipes to be made and groceries needed.

In our happily ever after, we have experienced dramatic and unpredictable changes, but one thing remains the same: we love food and cooking.  We’re excited to share our experiences with you.  Welcome to Chez Verde!

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Orlando Shakespeare Theater

Some information in this post comes from the Press Kit available for public download on Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s website.  Orlando Shakespeare Theater did not pay for this post, nor did they provide free tickets, merchandise, or any other benefits in exchange for this post.

In 2002, Chris and I moved to the Orlando area from the Boston area.  For many years, I complained that we moved to a cultural void.  I missed the theater, author readings, art museums, and other cultural institutions in Boston.  Over the years I learned about Orlando’s cultural institutions, but I wasn’t visiting them.  Between 2007 and 2011, my schedule was insane.  But in the latter half of 2011 the insanity dwindled.  Chris and I were looking for interesting things to do.  I figured it was time to put my money where my mouth was and actually visit some of Orlando’s cultural institutions.  After all, I had no right to complain if I never took advantage of the obvious cultural opportunities Orlando does offer.  One of the first things we did was buy tickets for several of Orlando Shakespeare Theater’s shows.  I adored them all and when they opened up season ticket subscriptions for the next season, we bought them.  We have been season ticket holders ever since.

History

The Orlando Shakespeare Theater as we know it today grew out of the University Central Florida.  In the early 1970s, English Professor Stuart Omans and his students traveled to local high schools to perform scenes from Shakespeare.  Subsequently, the National Endowment for the Humanities gifted UCF a grant for the Teacher Training Institute.  In 1975, Dr. Omans organized a teacher-produced production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.  Four years later, UCF received a second NEH grant of $150,000 to produce Hamlet: The Renaissance Mind.  In 1987, UCF released Omans from teaching and charged him with starting the UCF Project for the Development of Humanities and Fine Arts.  Their goal: the establishment of a Shakespeare festival.  UCF provided administrative offices and salaries for the Artistic Director, Business Manager, and Secretary.

Omans needed a space for the festival.  He contacted the City of Orlando and Walt Disney World, both of whom agreed to donate funds for the expansion and renovation of the bandshell at Lake Eola in downtown Orlando.  Omans established the Orlando Shakespeare Guild, which held its first fundraiser at the Enzian Theater in 1988.  In 1989, the Orlando Shakespeare Festival rented costumes from the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England, marking the first time RSC lent garments to the United States.  In 1990, the Festival’s performances expanded to five-week runs and moved to the spring for warmer temperatures.

1994 marked Dr. Omans final season as OSF’s Artistic Director.  Current Artistic Director Jim Helsinger came on board starting with the 1995 season.  That year, OSF converted a store in the old Winter Park Mall into a 120-seat venue to house the Festival’s first full-length non-Shakespearean production, Dracula: The Journal of Jonathan Harker.  In 1996, the Festival expanded to two fall production performed at the Civic Center.  The following year, OSF moved select productions to the Orange County Historical Museum in Loch Haven Park (a building scheduled to be torn down once the History Center relocated).  On behalf of OSF, John Lowndes and Gordon Arkin negotiated with the City of Orlando for a long-term lease of the Orange County History Museum building.  In 1998, the costume and scene shops were moved into the old museum space.

In 1999, Board Chair Rita Lowndes lead a fundraising campaign to raise $3.2 million to renovate the Historical Museum building as a new home for OSF.  The construction company, Jack Jennings & Sons, began demolition and renovation of the soon-to-be John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center in March 2001.  On November 30, 2001, OSF held its Gala Opening Night performance of The Taming of the Shrew in the newly renovated theater.

In its new space, OSF continued to grow.  In 2002 the Darden Theater for Young Audiences Series expanded to the children’s productions.  in 2003, the PlayLab Series, which featured monthly readings and workshops, changed its name to PlayFest and held a 10-day festival of new plays.  In 2005, OSF received a large gift from Harriet Lake, with the purpose of creating “The Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival Endowment in Playwriting,” a $1 million endowment held by the UCF Foundation for the Development of New Plays at OSF and a playwriting curriculum in the UCF Department of Theater.  She also made a four-year commitment to be the presenting sponsor of the newly named “PlayFest! The Harriett Lake Festival of New Plays.”  In 2006, OSF changed its name to “Orlando Shakespeare Theater in Partnership with UCF,” to better reflect the Theater’s year-round performance schedule and permanent performance spaces.  Locals usually refer to the Theater as Orlando Shakes or simply The Shakes.

Today

Orlando Shakes continues to operate out of the John and Rita Lowndes Shakespeare Center, which is now a 50,000 square foot facility that houses four professional theaters, classrooms, rehearsal halls, patron’s room, catering kitchen, courtyard, lobbies, gift shop, box office, scenic and costume shops, and administrative offices.  Their four performance spaces include the 324-seat Margeson Theater, 118-seat Goldman theater, 99-seat Mandell Theater, and the 75-seat Santos Dantin Studio Theater.

The Shakes season includes the seven-show Signature Series, the three-show Children’s Series, an annual Mock Trial in which a character or author from a current production is put on trial with area attorneys and judges arguing both sides of the case, and PlayFest, a festival of readings and exclusive panels.  In the summer OST hosts educational camps and The Young Company, a group of talented high school students who perform works of Shakespeare.

The 2017-18 season is now underway.  OST is currently staging both Shakespeare in Love and Twelfth Night.  The final production for 2017-18 is The Luckiest People which opens on March 28, 2018.

On February 23, 2018 OST announced its complete list of shows for the 2018-19 season, which is their 30th Anniversary season.  The shows are:

  • In the Heights, opening September 8, 2018
    • This is a Lin Manuel Miranda hit show, before Hamilton.  Broadway in Orlando is bringing Hamilton to Orlando as part of its 2018-19 season, so you might be able to see the two shows in the same season.
  • The Mystery of Irma Vep — A Penny Dreadful, opening October 10, 2018
    • A quick-change marathon where two actors play all the roles.  It promises to be hilarious.
  • A Christmas Carol, opening November 28, 2018
    • OST last staged A Christmas Carol in XXX.  I love this play and thought OST’s XXX production was the best I have ever seen.  I am looking forward to seeing it again this season!
  • A Dollhouse, Part 2, opening January 2, 2019
    • A sequel to Ibsen’s book
  • Hamlet, opening February 6, 2019
  • Gertrude and Claudius, opening February 20, 2019
    • A prequel to Hamlet, based on John Updike’s book.  OST commissioned the play adaptation, with funding provided by John and Rita Lowndes.
  • Richard II, opening March 27, 2019

Visiting Orlando Shakespeare Theater

Getting There

The Orlando Shakespeare Theater is located in Loch Haven Park, which is also the home of the Orlando Museum of Art, the Orlando Science Center, the Orlando Repertory Theater, the Mennello Museum of American Art, the Orlando Fire Museum, and the Orlando Garden Club.  Many cultural events happen in Loch Haven Park.  Events I’ve personally attended include the Fringe Festival, the Maker Faire (which outgrew Loch Haven Park and is now held at the Orange County Fairgrounds), and Veg Fest (which was most recently held at the Orlando Festival Park).

The address for Loch Haven Park is 777 E Princeton Street, Orlando, FL 32803.  The park is about 0.25 miles from 17-92 (also called North Mills Avenue) and 0.5 miles from I-4.  Princeton Street cuts the park in two.  If you are coming from I-4, the Science Center Parking Garage and the Mennello Museum are on your right and the rest of the institutions are on your left.

Sunrail‘s  Florida Hospital Health Village is a couple blocks away, but the last train of the night departs earlier than you will be able to get there if you are attending an evening performance at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater and Sunrail does not operate on weekends or holidays.  Buses do operate along Princeton, with a stop close to Loch Haven Park, so if you are interested in public transit, check Lynx‘s schedule.

Parking

Parking is $5 in the Science Center garage during the Center’s operating hours, free if you are a member of the Science Center.  There is free surface parking in front of the Orlando Repertory Theater and between the Orlando Shakespeare Theater and the Orlando Museum of Art.  Once or twice a year, the Council of 101, which supports the Art Museum, holds special events to raise funds for the Art Museum.  During those special events, they charge a parking fee for the two surface lots in Loch Haven Park.  Anyone entering Loch Haven Park pays the fee, even if you aren’t going to the Art Museum.

If multiple Loch Haven institutions are holding events, parking can be busy.  The Orlando Shakespeare Theater website now hosts a Parking and Event Schedule for Loch Haven Park.  This schedule lists every event that might affect parking for OST performances.  The list includes the event, which venue is hosting, the start and end times of the event, and the number of anticipated guests.  On nights when OST expects parking to be particularly challenging, they offer valet parking for $5 cash in front of the Theater.  The Parking and Event Schedule lists valet parking if it is available.

We often find the lot between the Shakes and OMART full, so we park in front of the Orlando Repertory Theater and walk across the open grassy area or along the sidewalks to get to the Orlando Shakespeare Theater.  In all the years we’ve attended OST, only once have we parked in the Science Center once due to no availability in any of the surface lots.

Food

Unfortunately, the only food option actually in Loch Haven Park is the Subway on the first floor of the Science Center, which is only open when the Science Center is open.  There is an entrance from Loch Haven Park directly into the Subway, if you would like to eat there.  Florida Hospital is about three blocks away, and you can eat in their cafeteria.  It’s been a while since I’ve eaten there, but by all accounts the food is decent.  Since Florida Hospital is a Seventh-day Adventist Hospital, the cafeteria offers a number of vegetarian and vegan options; it does also offer meat.  There is a Panera on the corner of Rollins Avenue and Orange Avenue, about a 0.4 mile walk from Orlando Shakes.  Across the street from the Panera, there is a Wendy’s.

Orlando Museum of Art hosts 1st Thursdays, which they bill as “Orlando’s original art party.”  Your $15 admission (free if you are an OMART member; maybe also if you are a member of an organization with reciprocity, but I’m not sure) gets you into the Museum’s featured exhibit as well as a themed exhibit of local artists.  The artists are usually in attendance and the artwork is for sale.  You will hear live musicians in the rotunda and there is food available for purchase.  1st Thursdays is 6 pm – 9 pm; the Shakes evening performances start at 7:30 pm.  If you get to OMART at 6, you have time to view the art, buy dinner and wine, and make it to the performance on time.

If none of the above appeals to you, you will have to eat before you arrive or, if you’ve spent the day at the Art Museum or Science Center, drive out of Loch Haven Park to find food.  Several excellent options exist within a 10-minute drive of Loch Haven Park, on Mills Avenue or Orange Avenue.

In the lower lobby of Shakes, volunteers sell candy bars, packaged cookies, hummus, ice cream, beer, wine, water, and sodas.  Drinks are allowed in the theaters, but food is not.  Most shows include a 15-minute intermission.  Before the show starts, you can pay for drinks and snacks to pick up at intermission.  The orders are out on a separate table, so you just pick them up from there and skip the line.

Of Interest

If you are attending a Shakespeare play, be sure to arrive 30 minutes before show time to attend the Prologue, which is free and open to all ticket holders.  Someone, often Orlando Shakes’ Director of Education Anne Hering, provides an interactive presentation of the plot, characters, and themes of the play you are about to see.  If you’ve never seen Shakespeare and worry that you will have a hard time understanding the show, the Prologue will help overcome those fears.  If the source of those fears is reading Shakespeare in high school English class, please, please, please go see a performance.  Shakespeare is far funnier and bawdier than I ever realized from reading him in English class!

Our Experience

I adore Orlando Shakespeare Theater.  To date, I have seen 40 Orlando Shakes productions and they are consistently excellent in terms of acting, costuming, and production values.  OST productions always premiere on a Friday night.  They stage two preview performances, on the Wednesday and Thursday before the premiere.  Our season tickets are for the Thursday night preview performances.  Previews are the first time a show is before a paying audience.  One purpose of previews is to see if adjustments are necessary prior to the official opening.  Theoretically, in a worst case scenario, the production could be interrupted to make real-time adjustments.  However, that has never happened in any of the productions we have attended — even when we went to the 2013 open dress rehearsal for A Midsummer Night’s Dreamand one actor clearly forgot his lines and started doing the Monty Python Black Knight routine instead.

The Signature Series plays are either in the 324-seat Margeson theater or the 118-seat Goldman theater.  As season ticket holders, we have the same seats for each performance, in the second row center regardless of theater.

The first play I attended at OST was the 2011 performance of The Importance of Being Earnest.  During my freshman year of high school, I lived in England with my uncle’s family and went to school there.  In our English class, we spent quite a long time in reading and analyzing this play, but I had never seen it performed.  I was enchanted with OST’s performance, and so began my abiding love for OST.

Other personal favorites include:

  • the 2012 production of The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged), during which I was held hostage at (plastic) sword point in my seat, just prior to intermission.  One character is refusing to perform Hamlet; the other holds an audience member — me for that performance — hostage, insisting the audience member will not be released until the other character agrees to perform Hamlet.
  • the 2014 production of Nicholas Nickleby, which was 5 hours long.  The play was divided in two parts, played in repertory.  I had not read that particular Dickens before.  I loved the play and that motivated me to read the book, which was sometimes a bit of a slog.
  • the 2016 production of Dancing Lessons, a romantic comedy about a man with Asperger’s who seeks out dancing lessons so he can dance at an upcoming event.  The dancing instructor has a leg injury which may end her career and is bitter about it.  Both actors gave haunting, beautiful performances, which stuck with me long after I left the theater.
  • the 2017 production of Blackberry Winter, about a woman dealing with her mother’s dementia impacted me in a way no other live theater has.  I didn’t totally love this show, which is told partly as a fable.  The fable parts did not work for me.  But when Suzanne O’Donnell, playing the role of the daughter, was on stage she was phenomenal.  The show did not have an intermission, and I was wishing for one just to get away from how intensely raw, honest, and unrelenting O’Donnell’s performance was.  Given the theme of the play, this is a complement and an effective creative choice as real life doesn’t have an intermission.  In only 90 minutes, I got a visceral understanding of what it feels like to live with a family member’s dementia.
  • the 2017 production of Antony and Cleopatra, starring Michael Dorn and Caralyn Kozlowski in the title roles.  As a long time Star Trek fan, I was thrilled to see Dorn on stage and in such an intimate (118-seat theater!) environment.  While he was excellent, Kozlowski stole the show.

My favorite season so far was the 2014-2015 season because the line-up included three of my personal all-time favorite plays: Les Miserables (which I’ve seen a half-dozen times in various locations), A Christmas Carol (which I’ve seen a half-dozen times as a play and is on my must-watch Christmas movie list in almost any of its iterations), and To Kill A Mockingbird (during my senior year of high school, I played Miss Maudie Atkinson in my high school’s production of this play).  All three were wonderful.  OST’s production of A Christmas Carol is my favorite of any of the productions I have ever seen.  I particularly loved the way they handled the Ghost of Christmas Future, which is the most traditional specter Scrooge sees.  I literally gasped when this massive puppet appeared on stage.

OST is an absolute treasure and we are lucky to have them here.  I will hold Season Tickets for as long as I live here and if I do ever move, OST will be very high on the list of things I will miss.

In Conclusion

You should go to Orlando Shakespeare Theater.  Shakespeare in Love and Twelfth Night, both currently running, are excellent shows.  See them both.  I recommend seeing Shakespeare in Love first because if is a fictionalized account that speculates on Shakespeare’s inspiration for the central character in Twelfth Night.  Enjoy!