Ikeda, Thomas & Waterston Join Cast of As You Like It in the Park

Jennifer Ikeda, Richard Thomas and James Waterston will join Brian Bedford, Lynn Collins and Herb Foster in the Public Theater staging of William Shakespeare's As You Like It in Central Park this summer.

Ikeda, who will play Celia, previously appeared in Public Theater productions of The Two Noble Kinsmen and Erica Schmidt's 2003 scaled-down revisionist staging of As You Like It in which Ikeda played Adam, Phebe and Audrey. Her regional theater credits include mountings of The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, Antigone, The Memorandum, The Mahabharata and The Tutor.

Thomas, who is set for the role of Touchstone in As You Like It, recently appeared on the Great White Way in Democracy. He is famous for playing John-Boy on the TV hit The Waltons from 1972 through 1977 and has revisited the character in subsequent reunion specials A Walton Thanksgiving, A Walton Wedding and A Walton Easter. His Broadway credits include Sunrise at Campobello, Strange Interlude, The Playroom, Everything in the Garden, Fifth of July, The Front Page and Love Letters. He has appeared off-Broadway in The Seagull, Square One, Tiny Alice and The Stendhal Syndrome among others.

< Waterston's off-Broadway credits include The Jew of Malta, Arden of Faversham and Another Time. He has appeared regionally in mountings of Julius Caesar, Proof, Twelfth Night, Long Day's Journey Into Night, Gross Indecency and more. He is the son of actor Sam Waterston, who appeared at the Delacorte last year in Much Ado About Nothing. The actor is set to play Orlando in As You Like It.

In As Your Like It, a duke usurps his brother's land and power, banishing him and his attendants into the forest of Arden. The banished duke's daughter, Rosalind Collins, remains with her cousin Celia Ikeda. She has fallen in love with Orlando Waterston, but he has his own tyrannical brother to contend with, so he joins those in the forest. Rosalind, now banished, disguises herself as a young man, with Celia as her servant, and follows Orlando into the forest. Can true love find a way, and can brothers be reconciled and harmony restored?

As You Like It, which will be directed by Mark Lamos and will also feature Herb Foster, is scheduled to run at the Delacorte Theatre from June 25 through July 17.