Shakespeare updated in CLU production

California Lutheran University’s Theatre Arts Department will bring Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure” to the stage in performances at 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, Nov. 3 through 5 and Nov. 10 through 12, and at 2 p.m. Sun., Nov. 13 in Preus-Brandt Forum on the CLU campus, 60 W. Olsen Road, Thousand Oaks.

The CLU stage will be transformed into the Bohemian streets of 19th-century Paris, complete with ToulouseLautrec-style posters designed by CLU’s multimedia students. In a play that explores issues of human virtue and vice, the characters represent the range of humanity from the highest government officials to the lowest street criminal. It is a dark comedy set in a place where “corruption boils and bubbles/Til it o’er-runs the stew,” said director Nick Avila, a recent graduate of the Yale School of Drama and an adjunct instructor at CLU. Avila said the play raises such questions as: What is the nature of law? Who should be punished? Who shall be forgiven? Will I forgive the one who has wronged me? Will I forgive myself?

General admission is $8; free with CLU I.D. For tickets and information, please call the theatre arts office at (805) 4933415.