“If I be waspish,” the tempestuous Katherine says early in Act 2 of Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew, “best beware my sting.”

The overall tone is light and comic, but one of the Bard’s earliest comedies takes a more serious tone in exploring such larger social issues as the proper relation of the sexes in marriage. The latest installment of the Library’s popular Script-in-Hand series features the

Kansas City’s Heart of America Shakespeare Festival reversing the gender of all the characters, casting those themes in a different context. Katherine becomes a male, Kit. Petruchio is a female, Petruchia. Per Shakespeare’s intent, it provokes both laughs and thought.

The event is part of the McMeel Family Shakespeare Series in collaboration with the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival.