SANDPOINT — Don’t put that festival chair, blanket and picnic basket away just yet. The Festival at Sandpoint may be a wrap for the season, but this Friday, Shakespeare comes to town — and he’s bringing his friends.

As soon as the gates open at 1 p.m., the Bonner County Fairgrounds will be transformed — not to mention transported — when a traveling troupe of actors brings “The Taming of the Shrew” to town as part of the Montana Shakespeare in the Parks summer series. The play is free and open to the public.

“I’m calling it Shakespeare in Sandpoint,” said Christine Holbert, founder and publisher of Lost Horse Press, whose non-profit, independent press is hosting the event. Based on the amount of time she has spent trying to get Sandpoint added to the troupe’s summer itinerary, the name is appropriate.

Even before the play begins, the fairgrounds gate will become a threshold to the past, as members of the Society for Creative Anachronism gather to recreate the Bard’s age.

“We’re having a medieval village with a blacksmith, people who do embroidering, belly dancers and musicians,” Holbert said. “Another fun thing is that the Sandpoint High School Shakespeare Club will be wandering through the audience. They’ll stop someplace and give you two minutes of, I don’t know — ‘Romeo and Juliet.’

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