Never has there been a Shakespeare performance that rapped “Othello,” showed a dinosaur shooting darts and “puked” scarves over reporters in the first row.

That is, until “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” stormed Daggy Hall as a part of WSU Performing Arts’ Midwinter Night’s Gala event. Community members filled Daggy on Friday to support the event – a fundraiser for the performing arts department of WSU.

“The goal (was) for people to have fun,” Performing Arts Director Gail Siegel said. “Any funds we make we’ll be using to allow us to keep very high quality programming along with very reasonable ticket prices.”

The event had been on the radar for the advisory board for a while and the timing lined up just right to put it on, Siegel said.

Amanda Bye, an engineering major and theater employee who worked at the gala, said the event helps raise awareness and draw attention to the theater program. She described the event as fun, and judging by what she heard from the play, everyone enjoyed themselves.

The price for gala tickets covered the show, refreshments and a photo booth set up in the lobby. The social hour began at 6:30 p.m., with hors d’oeuvres and a cash wine bar catered by Banyans on the Ridge.

The photo booth included an armory of hats, glasses, masks and fake mustaches on sticks.

There was also a silent auction with donations from community members and businesses around the Pullman and Moscow area. Auction items included hand-crafted goods like scarves and glass ornaments and tickets to see Sheryl Crowe and Springfest. There was also an array of Cougar gear including clothes, cookbooks and wines.

Bidding for the silent auction occurred during the social hour and intermission for the show, which started at 7:30 p.m. The show, presented by Moscow Art Theatre (Too), looked and felt like a group of three friends trying to put on a play.

“It’s a very fast-paced, very funny show,” Siegel said. “You don’t have to have any prior knowledge of Shakespeare to completely fall off your chair laughing.”

The characters, using the same names as their actors, included a Hamlet-phobe Michael Smith, a supposedly pre-eminent scholar from Shakespeare.com David Harlan, and the frantic and frenzied Mary Trotter, a WSU performing arts assistant professor, who tries to keep it all together (and fails in the funniest ways).

Their enunciated speech and quick quips elicited laughter from the entire audience.

As the show went on, the actors more or less covered every single play Shakespeare wrote – sometimes following the plot and sometimes not. More often than not, Smith portrayed the female characters, who always seemed to end up vomiting.

Anyone familiar with Shakespeare’s works could see the core of each story followed the actual play, no matter how off-track it may go. The tale of “Titus Andronicus” was portrayed as a cooking show, the kings of Shakespeare played football, and “Hamlet” was interrupted by a rant about the television show “Dr. Who.”

Not only was Hamlet interrupted, but it had very fake sword fights, and was done in less than five minutes. Then it took less than 30 seconds. Then five. Then backward.

The show involved audience interaction. At one point the entire audience portrayed the psycho-analysis of Ophelia’s innermost thoughts as Hamlet screamed “Get thee to a nunnery!”

“I think (theater) is an important part of it for cultural development,” Bye said. “Like Shakespeare, though, this might have been a slightly less cultured, developed version.”

As an engineering major, Bye said being a part of performing arts is an outlet for her to experience theater and its benefits.

Siegel said she hoped that people walk away from the event remembering it as a really fun evening.

“We hope it’ll be an annual event,” she said.