The Shakespeare Theatre of NJ
Begins May 28
Directed by Bonnie J. Monte
[button url=”http://www.shakespearenj.org/OnStage/PurchaseTickets.html” target=”blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]Artistic Director Bonnie J. Monte directs The Tempest for the first time since 1991, her inaugural production at The Shakespeare Theatre. Prestigious company veteran Sherman Howard, an actor Ms. Monte describes as “a force of nature in himself,” will portray Prospero, the powerful magician who rules over his enchanted island home.
Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Dominic Dromgoole
[button url=”https://tickets.shakespearesglobe.com/” target=”blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]FRIENDS CLOSE, ENEMIES CLOSER
When Caesar returns to Rome from the wars a virtual dictator, Brutus and his republican friends resolve that his ambition must be curbed – which in Rome can mean only one thing: the great general must be assassinated. But once the deed is done, the idealistic conspirators must reckon with the forces of a new power bloc, led by Mark Antony and Caesar’s nephew Octavius. When their armies close at Philippi, will Caesar’s ghost be avenged?
Opposing dictatorship and republicanism, private virtue and mob violence, Shakespeare’s tense drama of high politics reveals the emotional currents that flow between men in power.
This production will employ Renaissance costumes and staging.
Shakespeare’s Globe Theater
From 6 August (touring UK and USA)
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Old King Lear, weary of royal duties, proposes to break up his kingdom and divide it among his three daughters. But this rash generosity is cruelly repaid and Lear discovers too late the false values by which he has lived – and, in turn, the suffering common to all humanity.
Its tempestuous poetry shot through with touches of humour and moments of heart-rending simplicity, King Lear is one of the deepest artistic explorations of the human condition.
The Comedy of Errors
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Blanche McIntyre
[button url=”https://tickets.shakespearesglobe.com/” target=”blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]Take one pair of estranged twin brothers (both called Antipholus), and one pair of estranged twin servants (both called Dromio), keep them in ignorance of each other and throw them into a city with a reputation for sorcery, and you have all the ingredients for theatrical chaos. One Antipholus is astonished by his foreign hospitality; the other enraged by the hostility of his home town. The Dromios, caught between the two, are soundly beaten for obeying all the wrong orders.
Basing his plot on a farce by Plautus, Shakespeare caps the mayhem of his Roman original to build up a hectic tale of violent cross-purposes, furious slapstick and social nightmare.
This production will employ Renaissance costumes and staging.
The Shakespeare Theatre of NJ
Begins October 15
Directed by Paul Mullins
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Longtime company director Paul Mullins returns to direct Shakespeare’s final play, the rarely produced historical epic about the young King Henry and the first two of his six wives.
Begins December 4
Directed by Scott Wentworth
[button url=”http://www.shakespearenj.org/OnStage/PurchaseTickets.html” target=”blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]The 2014 season concludes with the of Shakespeare’s delightful comedy Much Ado About Nothing, which has not been seen at the Theatre in over a decade. Renowned actor and director Scott Wentworth sets the play post-World War II, à la “White Christmas,” and will appear on stage alongside his wife, Marion Adler (last seen in Our Town).