“Our director has a really interesting concept that works well with the play,” Haskell said. “We’re not just doing the play in traditional style — we’re adding a little bit of flair.”

The play follows main characters Orlando and Rosalind as they leave toxic conditions in their separate home lives and find one another in an odd forest filled with unconventional characters who all accept one another’s eccentricities.

The forest, transformed into a circus in Traister’s version, witnesses Orlando and Rosalind’s fight for their love — all while Rosalind is in hiding as a man.

Director Christina Traister said she transformed the play’s setting so the story would engage the audience.

“I kept thinking, ‘OK, what is a more tangible world that audiences can get hooked into?’” Traister said. “So then I started exploring the idea (of a circus) more and looking at the stock characters of the forest and how they could fit in — we have an acrobat, a bearded lady, a lion tamer, a snake charmer — and then we started to see how they can fit textually.”

Although the script mimics Shakespeare’s original text, Haskell said the way the story is told makes it easier to comprehend.

“Christina (Traister) was really great about making the language understandable in the sense of what words you emphasize,” said Haskell, who also is the understudy for Orlando, and a theater graduate student. “So yes, it’s still the same text, we didn’t change Shakespeare’s words, but we make sure that we perform it in a way that it’s accessible to everyone.”

The play’s storyline demands more of its actors than reciting lines — it tests their athletic abilities as well.

The story’s circus setting encourages combative and physical performances from the characters on stage.

Curran Jacobs, a theatre junior and MSU wrestler, plays the role of Orlando and acts as the play’s fight director.

As fight director, Jacobs taught the fundamentals of wrestling to those involved in combat on stage.

“It was fun to train them and teach them the basics of wrestling and get them comfortable enough to do the stunts and to do the rolls and to do the wrestling moves,” Jacobs said.

MSU men’s basketball forward Delvon Roe is among those involved in the on-stage combat. Orlando wrestles Roe’s character in a fight, pitting two MSU athletes against each another.

“Delvon is awesome,” Jacobs said. “What I love about him most is that he has a passion for acting — he’s not just somebody coasting through the art.”

Jacobs said Roe wanted the real deal when it came to wrestling during practice.

“He didn’t want me to take it easy on him in training,” Jacobs said. “He actually wanted to be slammed on the mat and wanted to make it as exciting and wild and hardcore as he could possibly make it.”

Although wrestling remained a major challenge for many of the play’s actors, Mariette Strauss, a theatre senior playing the character of Rosalind, was faced with the task of acting a different gender.

Strauss said certain aspects of playing a woman portraying a man were hard to relate to.

“It was hard to get the physicality down,” Strauss said. “I started off at the beginning of this process and the scenes showing physicality were the ones that scared me the most.”

Wrestling and gender roles aside, Strauss said the uniqueness of the forest in “As You Like It” stands out as a subtle, but important, element of the show.

“I just think, especially in the light of all these gay suicides that have been happening, I love this world (in the forest), where it’s beautiful to be different and it’s embraced,” Strauss said.

“It breaks my heart when people hide who they are because there’s such beauty and liberation in letting yourself be free, and I think that’s an important part (in the play) — when people can be in the forest and be free to be who they are.”

For more information and showtimes for “As You Like It,” visit theatre.msu.edu'.