Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Ann Ciccolella. Austin Shakespeare at the Rollins Theatre, The Long Center for the Performing Arts, Austin, TX. November 15, 2017 Reviewed by Michael Saenger. On an elegantly open stage, punctuated only by a standing lattice arch, Austin Shakespeare created an intoxicating sense of optimism and the distinct impression that […]
Henry IV by William Shakespeare, Directed by Beth Burns for The Hidden Room, York Rite Masonic Hall, Austin TX, Sept 8 – Oct 1, 2017 Reviewed James Loehlin on September 15, 2017 www.hiddenroomtheatre.com Beth Burns’s Austin company, The Hidden Room, has established a reputation for energetic and experimental early modern productions, often employing all-male companies […]
The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Kevin Gates. At the City Theater, Austin, TX, June 8, 2017. Review by Michael Saenger What in the world does one do with The Taming of the Shrew? When I was growing up, it was a staple of community theater, a hilarious and (chuckle) romantic tale of an […]
‘Know us by these colours’: Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2016 By Sheila T. Cavanagh, Emory University Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) in Ashland, Oregon sparked considerable controversy last year when they announced their “Play On!” initiative, whereby current playwrights and dramaturgs are being commissioned to “translate” the plays attributed to Shakespeare into twenty first century English. […]
Volpone, by the Resurgens Theatre Company Directed by Brent Griffin at the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse in Atlanta, GA, 2016 Review by Tyler Bruce Dale, Mary Baldwin University This year, early modern scholars and practitioners celebrate the quadricentennial anniversary of Ben Jonson’s Workes, the first folio of his plays, published in 1616. In Atlanta, the Resurgens theatre […]
Julius Caesar, Eileen and Allen Anes Studio Theatre, Utah Shakespeare Festival, Cedar City UT, Tuesday 18th October 2016 Reviewed by Harriet Archer ‘Julius Caesar’ can feel like a misnomer for a play whose eponymous figure is usually murdered just before the interval, and whose moral vision is as slippery as its rhetoric. Dramatizing the conspiracy by […]
Troilus and Cressida at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre, Boulder CO., August 4 2016 Reviewed by Harriet Archer Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida is a difficult work, sulky and intractable like so many of its characters. It is not a tragedy, or a comedy, or a history, or a romance. It is not really about its eponymous lovers, who […]
Cymbeline at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, University Theatre, Boulder CO., August 5, 2016 Reviewed by Harriet Archer Starring a wicked stepmother, a death-like sleep, a last-minute reprieve by a servant, and the platonic kindness of some rustic strangers, Shakespeare’s Cymbeline looks very like the story of Snow White at times, and Disney’s Snow White at that. The Colorado Shakespeare Festival company took this […]
The Merry Wives of Windsor, directed by Susan Gayle Todd and produced by the Austin Scottish Rite Theater and The Weird Sisters Women’s Theater Collective. At the Austin Scottish Rite Theater, August 3, 2016 Reviewed by Michael Saenger Whatever you might think is Shakespeare’s greatest play, Falstaff is almost certainly his greatest character. Shakespeare was […]
Review of Murray McGibbon’s King Lear in Original Pronunciation by Terri Bourus When I took my seat in the Wells-Metz theater in Bloomington for Murray McGibbon’s staging of King Lear, the first thing I noticed in the theatre-in-the-round set, was a stack of old tires, placed so that they were just at my feet, in the […]
