On Friday nights, the Festival of Arts’ brings to the stage some of Southern California’s most well-known tribute bands. Talented performers pay homage to music legends as they re-create popular songs. It’s a blast from the past Friday nights at the Festival of Arts!

There are songs in the plays of Shakespeare. Who knew? The playwright often wrote “song” in the text, above the lyric so there’s no confusion. The trouble is, even accounting for the genius of WS – like most songs, they don’t really grab you till you hear them performed by a singer. That’s to say: reading the lyric on the page is only half the story.

In the spring of 2010, Jason Feddy and his band met with local poet John Gardiner to develop a performance piece of Shakespeare’s songs with modern, acoustic based tunes combined with speeches from Shakespeare’s plays. The result is a fast-paced, off the cuff and energetic performance called Shakespeare’s Fool, featuring 10 songs and 10 speeches from the Shakespeare canon. The good-natured tension between the band and actors is unscripted and funny and the songs rock.