Photo: Liz Lauren

Money can’t buy friends. And as Eric Clapton sings, “Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.” These are lessons wealthy financier Timon learns the hard way when his fortunes flounder and his requests for financial aid are rebuffed by his affluent associates. Considered an unfinished work by most scholars, the somewhat disorganized structure of Shakespeare’s rarely performed “Timon of Athens” (staged at Chicago Shakespeare only once before, in 1997) presents a number of problems. Thus artistic director (and director of this production) Barbara Gaines spent some time with actor Ian McDiarmid (who elegantly captures both the comedy and tragedy of the titular character’s experiences) adapting the story in an attempt to make things clearer. Read the rest of this entry »

Simon Callow/Photo: André Penteado

RECOMMENDED

Those who have experienced one of veteran British stage and screen actor Simon Callow’s compelling one-man shows in the past will likely be checking out his latest solo effort solely based on the sheer revelation and enjoyment of his previous outings. However, unlike, say, his one-man Dickens show, where so much is known about that author and the material presented is always on terra firma, “Being Shakespeare” is a far more speculative show. And yet it is precisely because so little is known about the Bard—taken with his sine qua non reputation in the canon of English literature and a template-setting role in theater as we know it—that we are all the more curious. Read the rest of this entry »

Chicago Shakespeare Theater announces 2012/13 Season

Chicago—March 12, 2012—Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) Artistic Director Barbara Gaines and Executive Director Criss Hendersonannounced today CST’s 2012/13 Season, which begins with a major new production of Sunday in the Park with George by musical team Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, and also includes the Chicago premiere of The School for Lies by playwright David Ives and productions of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar and Henry VIII. The Theater’s extensive World’s Stage lineup of international programming for 2012/13 ranges from the American premiere of A History of Everything by Belgian company Ontroerend Goed to the return of the National Theatre of Scotland’s internationally acclaimed Black Watch and its inventive, supernatural The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart. CST’s annual CST Family programming kicks off this summer with Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. Additional productions will be announced for the 2012/13 Season later this summer, including an ongoing collaboration between Chicago Shakespeare Theater and Australia’s one step at a time like this (en route) creating for the City of Chicago a world premiere pedestrian-based live art event inspired by Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure and set in the city’s urban landscape. Read the rest of this entry »

Writers’ Theatre announces 2012/13 Season to feature Hamlet, Sweet Charity, Corneille’s The Liar adapted by David Ives and Midwest premieres by John W. Lowell and David Greig

Michael Halberstam, Stuart Carden, William Brown and Kimberly Senior slated to direct

Glencoe, IL—Writers’ Theatre Artistic Director Michael Halberstam and Executive Director Kathryn M. Lipuma announce the 2012/13 Season, which includes Shakespeare’s Hamlet directed by Michael Halberstam with Scott Parkinson in the title role; the Midwest premiere of John W. Lowell’s play The Letters, directed by Kimberly Senior; Sweet Charity, directed by Michael Halberstam with Musical Direction by Doug Peck and choreography by Jessica Redish; the Midwest premiere of David Greig’s Yellow Moon directed by Stuart Carden; and David Ives’ modern adaptation of Corneille’s The Liar, directed by William Brown.  Read the rest of this entry »

Timothy Edward Kane and Tracy Michelle Arnold/Photo: Liz Lauren

RECOMMENDED

Throughout Gary Griffin’s absorbing two-hour and twenty-minute production, Philip S. Rosenberg’s lights and Mike Tutaj’s projections coordinate with Mara Blumenfeld’s costumes to create an arresting wash of lush purples and oranges, working as much dreamy magic on the audience as Timothy Edward Kane’s gleeful fairy king Oberon and Elizabeth Ledo’s gender-bending Puck work on the four young lovers in the forest. Read the rest of this entry »

Miriam Reuter and Jon Matteson/Photo: Nicholas Gang

Chicago’s bustling theater scene might seem already saturated with companies, but the newly founded (re)discover theatre hopes their specific angle will help them find a bit of room in the city: Their mission is rediscovering classical theater while staying true to the ideals of the classic playwrights.

For their maiden production: Hamlet.

“Hamlet is so huge, you can’t get it right. Nobody can get it right, it doesn’t matter how long you’ve been in the business or how well you know Shakespeare,” executive director Miriam Reuter says. Read the rest of this entry »

From left: Adrian Danzig, Samuel Taylor, John Judd/Photo: Michael Brosilow

RECOMMENDED

What if all the magical action in “The Tempest” happened inside the head of one bitter, wronged man? “The Feast” portrays a tormented Prospero (John Judd) commanding his slaves Ariel (Samuel Taylor) and Caliban (Adrian Danzig) to repeatedly act out an unfolding drama of his own creation using masks and puppets. Read the rest of this entry »

AMERICAN PLAYERS THEATRE ANNOUNCES 2012 SEASON

SPRING GREEN, WIS: American Players Theatre is excited to announce its 33rd season, which will run June 9 to October 21, 2012. This season will be especially exciting to the Shakespeare lovers, with a return to three Shakespeare productions Up the Hill, as well as Vern Thiessen’s Shakespeare’s Will about William Shakespeare’s enigmatic wife, Anne Hathaway. And the first show ever to tread the boards in the Touchstone Theatre – In Acting Shakespeare, written by and featuring James DeVita – will return for a short run beginning in September.  Read the rest of this entry »

By Sharon Hoyer

The young king of England takes his troops into France and, against great odds, is victorious. Esteemed choreographer, director and writer David Gordon, founder of New York-based Pick Up Performance Co(s), compressed the Bard’s five-act history play into an hour-long show using original choreography and his own meta-chorus character, who provides commentary on Shakespeare and our own time. Gordon also mined the recent history of “Henry V” to retell the tale of prince Hal; “Dancing Henry Five” uses iconic recordings of Shakespeare’s text as performed by Laurence Olivier and Christopher Plummer, along with William Walton’s soundtrack from the 1944 film.

Why did you revive “Dancing Henry Five” now? Read the rest of this entry »

Here’s the press release from Oak Park Festival Theatre:

Oak Park Festival Theatre Announces
2011-2012 Season

OAK PARK, IL-Oak Park Festival Theatre announces its 2011-2012 performance season. Following last year’s successful four-play season, there will be two productions indoors, in addition to the two outdoors in Austin Gardens.

In the fall of 2011, OPFT will produce Tennessee Williams’ American classic The Glass Menagerie, directed by Kevin Theis, in the studio space at the Madison Street Theatre. A spring production of Stones in His Pockets by Marie Jones, directed by David Mink and starring Alan Ruck and OPFT Artistic Director Jack Hickey, will play in the same location. The summer season in Austin Gardens will be two highly charged political masterpieces: Lawrence and Lee’s Inherit the Wind, directed by Steve Pickering, and Shakespeare’s Richard III, directed by Belinda Bremner.  Read the rest of this entry »