Have you ever had that moment in your life that is so simultaneously absurd and painful that you think to yourself...well, I could throw myself off a bridge or tell a joke. Humor is a powerful survival tool and our heroine tonight, Haley Walker, embodies that courage and wit it takes to laugh in the face of the existential problems of dating. Dating. Doesn't it feel like taking your life in your hands sometime? Some of us are out there, doing it, now, maybe tonight, right now, as you read this you are on a date. Maybe even a first date. Kudos for your courage and optimism. Some of us may happen to trip over the love of our lives in a grocery store thumping a melon. And some of us are sitting at home praying that he or she will just one day walk through the door. However it happened or may come to happen, what we finally may come to realize is the great mystery behind it all, how life unfolds and how much we can actually trust ourselves to know what is true - and what is actually love.

One-person shows are sort of the theatrical equivalent of a blind date. Both parties come to the event with expectations, for laughs, for real conversation, for sensual...well...whatever floats your boat and perhaps a big mountain of hope. I more than suspect you will get what you came for tonight, and a few surprises added into the mix. I certainly have had the time of my life.

— Adrianne Krstansky

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If you've been to Shakespeare & Company, you've probably seen Elizabeth Aspenlieder before. Maybe you caught a glimpse of her arranging press tickets for the performance, conducting an interview, organizing a special event, or failing that, maybe you've seen her onstage. Elizabeth is not only a gifted artist, she is our Director of Public Relations and Playbill Advertising, a job that requires a rare combination of moxie and gravitas. It also helps to have a 26 hour day!

Her professional talents on stage draw huge applause and last year earned her several nods of approval including The Wall Street Journal's best stage comedienne of the year. This season you'll see her in The Ladies Man, Othello and the one-woman show Bad Dates.

We asked Elizabeth to tell you her story.

The power of language and the spoken word drew me here. That was 13 years ago, and that power still has hold of me. Tina was in Toronto, my home town, co-hosting a workshop performance of Scheherazade, the classic Arabian tale where the art of story-telling and rhetoric save a woman from her would be killers. I attended a post-show discussion where Tina spoke about the power of language, and the rise of violence in our world. Her words and ability to speak the truth viscerally affected me. That night was a perfect example of the transformative power of language.

The thought of taking a month off to immerse myself in Shakespeare, acting, and the theatre seemed blissful. Little did I know that my Shakespearean vacation would become permanent, and, of course, not always a vacation.

After that first month long intensive, I knew I wanted to return and be more involved with the Company. A few years later, I was ready to dive in and took the Company's summer-long training institute. In between performing, taking classes in Shakespeare's text, Elizabethan dance, voice, movement, stage combat and learning lines, we had to put in three hours of office work every day. And that was my introduction to the Artist Manager model which the Company still runs on. At first I was taken aback by doing several more jobs on top of my already full schedule of the institute, but then I began to really like working in the Press Office. I realized what Tina was trying to do with the Artist Managers and of course ended up becoming more invested in the Company with the added responsibilities and fortunately developed some of my untapped business skills. I quickly became completely enamored of the artist management system, and discovered, like Shakespeare's own acting company, that it is an incredibly successful business strategy.

Our professional training is some of the best world-wide no question. And I have taken many of the core professional training classes the Company offers. Before I arrived I thought I was a well-trained and versatile actor but I truly credit my success both on stage and in business to the multiple disciplines I've learned here. Whether I am pitching a training workshop, an education program, a play or artist, I think the advantage is that I am always psychologically, emotionally, and physically committed because I have been directly involved in all of the work or am knee deep in it at the time. Not to mention the artists here are incredibly talented, and there is so much going on with new programs, expansion of the season, new construction, special events, so I am always eager to take these stories to the media. I focus on promoting the Company as a whole and staying in the moment something that benefits me onstage as and actor and off-stage publicizing the Company.

One of my favorite lines from Shakespeare is 'No, no, my heart will burst and if I speak. And I will speak, so that my heart may burst.' This line inspires me all the time whether at work or in my personal life. I do speak about the Company a lot, and it truly comes from my heart. This Company is clearly highly-spirited, unspeakably unique and passionately committed to moving the world through language. I feel very fortunate to have found my way here and enjoy my personal investment in the growth and future, and my new found friends both on and off the ice. I believe that by participating in the work that goes on here I can speak from my own personal journey and I will speak so that my heart may burst. I just look at it as an adventure of spirit or a feast for the soul, if you will. Like Tina says, it's all about the language, breathing and connecting to your core. It really is as simple as that.

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"I am angry, I am sad; I am a comic realist, a misanthrope, and an idealist...But for myself, I would most like to be considered a playwright"

Theresa Rebeck was born in Cincinnati and earned her undergraduate degree at the University of Notre Dame. She also has three degrees from Brandeis University, including an eyebrow-raising Ph.D. in Victorian Melodrama.

"I am a feminist in that I believe that women are as fully human as men and that their experiences are as worthy of representation, as universally significant, as men's."

A dedicated storyteller of the human condition, Rebeck bristles at being pigeonholed as a "feminist playwright".

"I believe that, as a rule, women are as deeply flawed as men are. I'm interested in writing about the way both genders make mistakes and the ways we grow, or don't grow."

You may be surprised to learn that Rebeck likes to examine the darker side of humanity in her works. Her play Mauritius, now being performed on Broadway, is about two sisters who inherit a rare stamp collection after their mother's death. "I do believe that there are monsters out there, and that they are monsters," she says. "I'm a believer that all of us are broken in some way, and there's a hole in our heart that we pour our own destruction or our children or our stamp collection into."

"I'm someone who becomes extremely impatient if there's not a good laugh right around the corner."

But Rebeck possesses a terribly witty, if cynical, sense of humor as well. She wrote Bad Dates for the actress Julie White, whose dating horror stories inspired the play. In fact, the scene in which Haley is trying to summon the bartender for the check was written because White had a knack for making funny faces. About comedies, Rebeck says, "There's this sort of frothy feeling of delight when the pieces come together and everything's okay."

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