Thank you for visiting our archive. Each performance submitted to our website will be explained in detail in its own blog post. You can choose to look through these posts in a variety of ways.
“Nature versus nurture? Are villains born or bred? Can they ever find true redemption? Theater OCU explores Shakespeare's most villainous characters - Macbeth, Iago, Aaron, Tamora and Lady Macbeth - and asks the question: what is bad Shakespeare?” --description from Fringe programme
This exploration of Shakespeare's villains focused on, among others, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Iago, Tamora and Aaron, and Angelo from Measure for Measure.
Read More"Boy meets girl. Boy loves girl. Boy’s best friend meets girl and also loves girl. Hilarity ensues as love is professed, secret plans are made, and friendships are betrayed. This early romantic comedy takes a gleeful look at the fickle nature of young love and features one of Shakespeare’s most engaging comic heroines, two of his funniest clowns, and the best role ever for a dog.” –from the company website
Read MoreTwo versions of Shakespeare's gory masterpiece, performed in two wildly different styles
Read More"Willamette Shakespeare's mission is to produce and perform quality classical theatre, free of charge, for the purpose of education, enrichment, and entertainment to residents of and visitors to Oregon's Willamette Valley. Our shows tour multiple communities in our region, creating a family-friendly environment, and aiming to reach a broad audience of both seasoned fans of theatre and newcomers. While Willamette Shakespeare does not restrict itself to a particular genre or style of production, the company strives to create theatre that is accessible to contemporary audiences while honoring the rich history of classical theatre performance."
Read More“The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare’s first comedy, delivers non-stop humorous high jinks. The show has it all: madcap comedy, mistaken identity, seduction, slapstick, verbal sparring, vaudeville, two sets of twins, and a family reunion beyond belief. The Comedy of Errors packs a comedic wallop! This production will be presented indoors at High Mountain Hall.”
Read MoreOthello
Soldiers and Sailors Monument, New York City, New York, USA
July 28 – August 21, 2016
Hudson Warehouse
Directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith
Money can’t buy everything. Timon is a wealthy man with lots of friends, but when the money runs out, so do they. Realizing he should have listened to the people who tried to warn him—a servant, a soldier and a sworn enemy—Timon turns his back on the world. But the world finds him again when he stumbles upon another fortune. Is this Timon’s chance to find out who his true friends are and rejoin society? Amanda Dehnert (Julius Caesar, My Fair Lady) directs Shakespeare’s rarely staged tragedy, whose inclusion in the 2016 repertory will mark the fourth time OSF has completed the canon.
Read More“Following the stunning international success of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the renowned British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon returns with a ballet every bit as lavishly imagined, boldly expressed and consummately entertaining as the earlier work. Turning again to a classic work of English literature for inspiration, Mr. Wheeldon has adapted The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare’s late romance that combines elements of fairy-tale, comedy, tragedy and fantasy, all of which the ballet embraces with the same inventive staging, astute characterization and precise emotional register for which the choreographer is so admired.” –description from the National Ballet website
Read More“One of Shakespeare's most problematic works makes its Shakespeare in the Parking Lot debut when Ezra Barnes directs The Merchant of Venice. Renaissance motifs of masculine friendship and romantic love are portrayed in contrast to the bitter inhumanity of the moneylender Shylock, whose misfortunes--as a victim of blatant anti-Semitism--are presented so as to arouse understanding and sympathy.” –description from the Shakespeare in the Parking Lot website
Read MoreJulius Caesar:
“In this sensational political thriller, Shakespeare explores the tension between private loyalties and the public good, and unflinchingly questions the price of freedom. Caesar is determined to crown himself as Rome's first emperor, but a few senators, led by the idealistic, intellectual Brutus and his manipulative, rebellious friend Cassius, are prepared to sacrifice everything to liberate their country. Instead of being greeted as liberators, they are met with civil war.” –description from company website Press archives (Broadway World)
As You Like It:
“Shakespeare's sparkling comedy about love, family and identity is full of wit, music and gender-bending fun. The rightful duke and his supporters have been banished, while his impulsive daughter Rosalind remains at the mercy of the oppressive new regime. Comic twists and turns abound when Rosalind, disguised as a boy, flees the court to seek her father in the mysterious Forest of Arden. Her journey of self-discovery brings her face to face with Orlando, the man she loves.” –description from company website Press archives (Broadway World)
"Starring John Burstein, The Tempest is set on a remote island inhabited by the exiled sorcerer Prospero, his beautiful daughter, Miranda, and a host of otherworldly creatures and spirits, including the monstrous Caliban and ethereal Ariel.
Prospero conjures a tempest to shipwreck his usurping brother Antonio along with his entourage, the complicit King of Naples and his son Ferdinand. Through his magical arts, Prospero exposes his brother's treachery, redeems the King and restores Miranda to her proper station through marriage to Ferdinand. Believed to be Shakespeare's last play, The Tempest offers the Bard's reflections upon the power of theater itself.
By turns deeply moving, visually stunning, humorous and romantic, The Tempest is a lush illusion, rich with poetry and dazzling theatrical magic. This production will feature an abundance of song, as well as genuine illusions designed by a professional magician. The Tempest will be presented outdoors in the Camden Library Amphitheater."
Read More"In Love’s Labour’s Lost, friendship and loyalty amongst four young men and four young women are put to the test when romantic youthful notions of love encounter the challenges of adulthood. A high-spirited romantic comedy filled with dazzling wordplay, strong comic characters and a few unexpected twists, Love's Labour's Lost both charms and touches the heartstrings of young and old alike.
“Love’s Labour’s Lost for me is about growing up, about leaving behind adolescent attitudes towards love and gaining an understanding of the power and responsibility of loving another person,” says Maler. “Though it’s an early play, it has terrific language and indelible characters. Many of the themes, characters and situations in the play are explored in Shakespeare’s later plays, so you get to see the young Shakespeare at work in Love’s Labour’s Lost. The play for me became an anchor for the 2016 season, "Love On The Rocks", as we explore refractions and reflections on the enigmatic, magical and effervescent mystery of love.”
Read More“Founded in 1989, Hampshire Shakespeare Company is a community of artists dedicated to presenting the works of Shakespeare and promoting theatre in general. Every summer our Shakespeare Under the Stars series offers performances by both our Mainstage company of adults and our Young Company of school-age actors, all at the UMass Center for Renaissance Studies in Amherst.”
Read More“Tony winning director Daniel Sullivan (Proof, Cymbeline) returns to Shakespeare in the Park with one of the Bard’s most rarely produced plays, Troilus and Cressida. Both warriors and lovers play hard to get in this surprisingly modern epic about the hot blood, hot thoughts and hot deeds of the ancient Greeks.
In the 7th year of the Trojan War, Troilus, a young prince, pines for the affections of Cressida, a bright young woman who knows how to play it cool. Meanwhile, the heroes of the Iliad – Hector, Paris, and the kings they serve - debate whether to return the dangerously beautiful captive Helen or continue to fight without end. Nations and lovers alike do battle in this funny, piercing drama about romance and revenge in a world at war.” –description from the Public Theater website
Read MoreThe Winter’s Tale
Presented in English
Various city parks in New York City, New York, USA
July 18 – August 14, 2016 (open rehearsals beginning June 19)
New York Classical Theatre
For More Information:
http://www.newyorkclassical.org/pastproductions/
Selected Reviews and Media Coverage:
http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/news/story.asp?ID=-QUHO1Z
“Our flagship show for this coming season will be Twelfth Night. A show that is about adventure, and sailing ships and the crazy things people do for love. That sounds a lot like Perchance, its theatre and the artists who want to work there.
A beautiful, yet much more serious exploration of the season’s theme will be Romeo & Juliet. This show delves into the darker side of love and the lengths we will go for it. There are lessons to be learned about single-minded pursuit and rigid stances that we can all take away from here.” –from the Perchance Artistic Director Danielle Irvine, in the 2016 programme
Read More“Join us every Saturday at 2pm as the MaineStage ShakeSTARS take on the Bard’s final play. Years ago, the sorcerer Prospero was exiled by his evil brother to a desert island, accompanied only by his magic library and his infant daughter, Miranda. Now, Prospero has his chance at revenge: he conjures a magical storm to shipwreck his enemies. He’s got them right where he wants them: surrounded by illusions and hounded by spirits, ready to be taught a lesson. But he has some lessons to learn of his own. A touching fairy tale about learning to let go of the past and embrace the future, The Tempest will delight viewers of all ages. Performed in five installments, with a different cast of ShakeSTARS each week.”
Read More“As You Like It feels like a play that belongs to Millennials and our worldview just as much as it does to Shakespeare’s time. Both times have been wracked by uncertainty, violence, and social upheaval and chaos. Millennials are a generation that grew up in an environment shaped by war, crisis, and deception in our government, watching New Orleans drown, New York and Baghdad burn, and were never given adequate reasons why. The rights of ourselves, friends and families were torn asunder by a president who firmly believed that LGBTQ people go to hell. Gun laws were shredded to ribbons and we learned to fear our schools, movie theaters, and bars.
Shakespeare was born towards the end of England’s struggle with their shift from Catholicism to Protestantism and came of age as the Protestant reformation triggered religious wars throughout Europe. At times it was illegal to be Protestant, or Catholic, as the tides of history crashed into the cliffs of belief. Shakespeare’s world existed on the precipice of total chaos and so it has been for young people born between 1982 and 2000.
But what did Millennials do when we gained the right to participate in government? We elected the first Black president. We voted for gay marriage and against oppressive drug laws. We formed the next wave of the Civil Rights movement in Black Lives Matter. We have bucked restrictive labels, but embraced individual identity. As a generation, we are suspicious of blind patriotism and generally prefer authenticity over what is convenient. We prefer solidarity and redemption to mere tolerance and punishment. We have sought to make the alternative normative.
As You Like It is a microcosm of the larger Millennial experience. Our lives have been so directly impacted by policy that, for our generation, the political and personal have always been inextricably linked. So it is in As You Like It. Duke Frederick’s court is very reminiscent of the Bush era: suspicious, intolerant, and dangerous for anyone who does not fit in. In their opposition to these authoritarian ideals, Rosalind, Celia, Orlando, Jaques, Touchstone, and the lords who follow Duke Senior to the forest all viscerally remind me of Millennials. They shake off traditional limitations of gender, identity, and sexuality, nothing absolute but love and freedom.” –information from Rebecca Etzine’a website
Read More“Shakespeare’s death may have transpired long before our collective time (let’s make that 400 years, if we’re being precise,) but there truly is no denying the lasting influence of his works. Shakespearean works in all forms have long since become a ubiquitous part of our culture, and is in respect for this that the greater Rochester area community does its best to honor and appreciate all of the valuable art he left behind.”
Read MoreRichard III
Presented in English
The Gallery Players, New York City, New York, USA
July 14-July 31, 2016
Players' Shakespeare of Gallery Players
Producer: Dominic Cuskern
Director: Robin Leslie Brown
Scenic and Lighting Design: Conor Moore
Costume Design: Molly Walz
Sound Design: Megan Cully
Production Stage Manager: Jillian Christensen
Cast: Mickey Abbate, Kevin Bain*, Kevin Blackwelder, Brittany Brook, Ollie Corchado, RJ Foster*, Ian Geary, Varvara Ilchenko, Emily La Rosa, Jarvis Matthews, Iany Panait, Charles Pang, Alice Lussiana Parente, Victor Perez*, Katherine Puma*, Alexander Rafala, Nancy Rich, David Shakopi, Reet Roos Varnik, Nicky Vicinanzo, Matthew Whitfield, William Baldwin Young.(*members of Actors' Equity Association)
On Twitter:
@tgpbrooklyn
On Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/thegalleryplayers/
Selected Reviews and Media Coverage:
http://www.rgmagazine.com/richard-iii-the-gallery-players-a-review-by-frederick-r-stal/
https://www.broadwayworld.com/brooklyn/article/RICHARD-III-Opens-in-July-at-Gallery-Players-20160620
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
