Stoney Richards stars in 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)'

If you’ve missed popular morning radio host Charles David “Stoney” Richards since he left his “Y’d Awake” morning show on WDSY-FM (Y-108), you’re in luck.

You can catch Richards in the hilarious “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)” opening at Pittsburgh’s Threadbare Cider House on Wednesday evening.

It’s being produced by Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks, which usually performs its plays outdoors in the fall at Frick or Schenley Park. The show is being used as a vehicle to promote the fact that the plays are once again being performed in person. For the past two years they were on Zoom.

The play is about three people who set out to do the entire works of Shakespeare in an hour and a half.

“It is damn funny,” said Richards. “It’s Fireside Theater meets Monty Python meets Saturday Night Live. You don’t know if it’s scripted or we’re making it up and we’re not but it’s that kind of craziness.”

Richards explained that the show is all 37 Shakespeare plays rolled into one.

“The three guys who wrote this — Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winffield — are actors who wrote this maybe 15 or 20 years ago,” said Richards. “They started it at a renaissance fair and then took it to the West End in London, played in New York and played here at (Pittsburgh) Public Theater. It’s just brilliant.”

Richards interviewed Long, Singer and Winfield on his former radio show and was inspired to perform in it himself. The cast also includes Jennifer Tober, artistic director of Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks, and Aaron Crutchfield. They all play about half a dozen characters each through the course of the show.

“There are wigs, there are costumes, there are half costumes, you run back stage and throw something on ‘Oh look I’m Polonius. Now I’m Laertes.’ So that’s how it goes,” said Richards.

Richards is a busy working actor in Pittsburgh. He plays the recurring character of “Provost Peters” in the Netflix show “The Chair,” which is shot in and around the city. It stars Sandra Oh as the first woman of color to become chair of the English department at a tradition-bound university.

Richards also played “Uncle Gus” in an episode of Showtime’s “American Rust,” another filmed-in-Pittsburgh series that starred Jeff Daniels.