The Shrewd Awakening Worldwide Premiere

An Immersive Bar-Theater Rock Concert Inspired by Shakespeare’s Classic Love Story

Shrewd Awakening is an immersive bar-theater experience
disguised as a classic rock concert—and quietly staged as a modern reimagining of The
Taming of the Shrew. Set inside a working bar with a live band, the audience doesn’t sit
back and watch; they participate and collide with the story, the music, and each other as
the night unfolds like a set list with something to say.
Built on a foundation of a narrative classic rock set list—raw, familiar, and emotionally
direct—Shrewd Awakening fuses concert energy with modernized and reinvented
theatrical storytelling. What begins as a night out listening to live music slowly reveals a
narrative about power, identity, consent, and self-awareness. The lightly scripted show
never announces its literary roots. Instead, it lets the audience discover them in real
time, song by song, moment by moment.
The production is written, produced, and directed by a complete theatrical
amateur—not as a gimmick, but as a statement. Shrewd Awakening is a reminder that
the performing arts do not belong exclusively to institutions, gatekeepers, or polished
résumés. They belong to the people willing to show up, risk failure, and tell stories
anyway.
Created in a moment when many artists feel cultural spaces narrowing and public arts
institutions under visible strain and political pressure, Shrewd Awakening operates as
both a performance and an act of preservation. It asks what theater can be when it
leaves velvet seats behind, enters a bar, plugs into an amplifier, and speaks directly to
the room as a grassroots arts preservation movement.
“There’s a quiet fear right now that the arts are becoming extinguished,” says the
creator. “This show is a refusal to let that happen. It’s loud on purpose.”
With no proscenium, no fourth wall, and no safe distance, Shrewd Awakening invites
audiences to experience Shakespeare’s questions—Who leads? Who submits? Who
decides the story? —through the language of classic rock and roll. In this reimagined
presentation, misogyny is out, and self-awareness and self-empowerment are in.
Understanding that everyone holds the power to control their own narrative is the
‘awakening.’ This two-hour immersive experience is original, alive, and unapologetically
delivers a hard truth message for everyone to seek.
Shrewd Awakening is not a protest piece. It is not literature or a lecture. It can simply
just be that night out to have fun, and reconnect with your memories when times were
less complex, and hopefully leave with a new self-awareness.

Starring legendary NYC performer Joey Arias, with music performed by DC’s legendary band, The Bedrocks.

Venue: Barrel House Cafe & Bar, Washington, D.C.
Dates: January 29, 30, 31 (LIMITED RUN)
Time: 10:30pm
Tickets: $30, BarrelHouseDC.com