High Top Shakespeare Co.

A "summit" is a "high top".  In the High Top Shakespeare Co. the kids originally performed in Chuck Taylor High Top tennis shoes beacause we had no budget for shoes to go with the brilliant, authentic Elizabethan costumes built by Paula Mosqueda. The costumes were of Elizabethan structure, but made out of outrageous modern prints such as Sponge-Bob, Popeye, and rubber duckies! I noticed a few of the kids wearing Chuck Taylor's High Top shoes, so we all wore them in our first production, Taming of the Shrew, and the rest is history.

However, it should be mentioned that there is a company called the Reduced Shakespeare Co. that have used these shoes before us. But we use them in a new way! The shoes not only show up on all the performers, but in the sets and props as well such as tree ornaments in A Midsummer Night's Dream or a bag of gold in As You Like It.

Some facts about Shakespeare's life