Translating Shakespeare into English doesn’t seem like a particularly difficult task… until you learn that the source material made its way through a gender-switching commedia dell’arte treatment written in German (Der Widerspänstigen Zähmung) first.

That’s the challenge that Abby Lynch set for herself and Formerly Witty Productions with On the Sly, an adaptation and expansion of The Taming of the Shrew. Two continents and seven festivals later, the “Whitties” from Walla Walla, Washington are finishing their world tour this week in London.

The group—mostly new to Canada—has been exploring the country, albeit in the opposite direction to the general east-to-west trend of the CAFF Fringe circuit. (For touring artists “Canada’s got its act together a lot more with the Fringe festivals”; to participate in the major Fringes in the U.S.A. groups would jump from Orlando to San Francisco to Boulder.) The experience of Wakefield, QC’s festival is a highlight—”I think the whole town saw our show in one night”—and throughout our interview their enthusiasm for London is also evident, through enthusiastic proclamations that “I love this city”, “I love this market”, “we love the library”, and “the people have been so nice to us”.

As with many touring companies, the members of Formerly Witty have had to figure out the tricks of publicity; when you only arrive in a city a few days before a festival, “how do you get people to come to a show?” Although they lament that “no one ever teaches a class in PR, how to put together a press release and how to make marketing images,” the literary bent to London’s shows this year has made things a little easier. The lineups and exits for All the Great Books (Abridged) in particular have been good to visit because the audience is already primed: “you like messing with literature, [so] come see my play too!”

They’ve also experimented with blogging as a promotional tool. The site is “functional,” containing show times, reviews and photos, and they’ve found that “literally a couple of people” are all that contribute comments, but have also found that it helps build advance buzz around the show: half of the tickets to their performances at the Washington DC festival were sold in advance.

After the close of the London Fringe they will go their separate ways: although some of the company are going back to Whitman College, others are headed to Scotland, Ecuador, Chicago, Washington DC and Japan. All plan to continue in theatre in some form, and Formerly Witty Productions will remain an active company, so London may welcome its visitors from Walla Walla back in the future.

The final performance of On the Sly takes place Saturday night at 10:30pm in the Wolf Performance Hall.