Patrick DuLaney as Costard and Tim Budd as Don Adriano Armado in Love's Labour's Lost. Photo by Bob Goodfellow.

Berowne, Dumaine, Longaville and the youthful King of Navarre swear off the material world—including women— for three years to immerse themselves in study in hopes of achieving fame for swearing off the material world—including women—in order to study. To ensure that it is only the mind that “feasts”, no woman is allowed within a one-mile radius of the King’s court. While Dumaine and Longaville earnestly vow allegiance to the pledge, Berowne is highly skeptical that this promise will be kept for long. In fact, he immediately points out that the King will have to break the oath because the Princess of France and her ladies are arriving shortly for an audience with him on behalf of the sick and dying King of France. To save face, Navarre states that it is out of political necessity that he meets with her. Therefore, the oath will not be broken. Berowne uses his grasp of rhetoric to foretell that “necessity” will often be the cause of breaking their vow without necessarily breaking their vow.

With the academy now created, the antics of the rustic Costard and the Spaniard Don Adriano de Armado provide the only entertainment the king and his lords have. Before meeting with the Princess, they receive a letter from the lisp-affected Armado recounting the illicit actions of Costard and the countrywoman Jaquenetta. After the King and his men have some fun with the clown-like Costard, he is remanded to Armado’s custody and ordered to fast for a week on nothing but water and bran. Unbeknownst to Costard, Armado has intimately connected with Jaquenetta and remains enamored with her sassy charm.

Meanwhile, the Princess, her ladies and their waiting-man Boyet arrive. Bedecked in the colors of a fine French garden, the women expect to be honored at the palace with all appropriate pomp and circumstance. Instead, the King and is companions meet the Princess and her ladies in their designated camp, which is just over a mile from the castle. Before the end of this somewhat contentious meeting, the King falls for the Princess, Berowne for Rosaline, Dumaine for Katherine, and Longaville for Maria…and vice versa. Shortly thereafter, both Don Armado and the Berowne enlist Costard as messenger. He mixes up the Berowne’s letter to Rosaline with that of Armado’s letter to Jaquenetta.