Saturday, March 12, 2016

Southwest Shakespeare Company's 2016 / 2017 Season!

Southwest Shakespeare Company's 2016-17 Season

OR, by Liz Duffy Adams
September 2-17, 2016 in the Farnsworth Studio Theater

Sprung from debtors' prison after a disastrous overseas mission, Aphra Behn is desperate to get out of the spy trade. She has a shot at a production at one of only two London companies, if she can only finish her play by morning. Taking place over one night in the life of Aphra Behn--poet, spy, and first professional female playwright. The 1660s look a lot like the 1960s in this neo-Restoration comedy from the playwright The San Francisco Bay Guardian called "an artist of playful and highly literate imagination, radical instincts, and sardonic but generous humor."


THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
October 15 – 29, 2016 in the Nesbitt/Elliott Playhouse Theater

Shakespeare’s dark story of religion, race and prejudice has caused controversy wherever it has been presented. Bassanio, a young man-about-town is determined to woo the wealthy heiress Portia, but in order to finance his quest, he needs 3,000 ducats. Enter Shylock. The scales of justice and the bonds of family, friendship and love are tested in a world of deception, faithlessness and treachery.

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5th Annual WINTERFEST! --- SSC Winter Repertory
Two of Shakespeare’s Best
Presented in rotating repertory by a single company of players in the Virginia Piper Repertory Theatre
January 13 – 29, 2017

HAMLET
Without question the most famous play in the English language, HAMLET is a milestone in Shakespeare's dramatic development--a portrait of a man torn between two forces; the need to remain morally pure and the need to take revenge. Join us for an unforgettable theatre event!

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
One of the cleverest comedies The Bard ever penned, MUCH ADO features one of the most engaging and unlikely romantic couples in all of Shakespeare, Beatrice and Benedick. In all its intrigues, battles of wits, romance, buffoonery, and dramatic thrills, MUCH ADO asks us to look beneath the surface of love to its true nature, past human frailty to humility and forgiveness.
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PHOTOGRAPH 51 
by Anna Ziegler
February 24 – March 11, 2017 in the Farnsworth Studio Theater

This award-winning play was a giant hit in London’s West End where it opened for a limited run in September 2015. The play is about Rosalind Franklin, a King’s College researcher whose 1950s work just missed coming to grips with DNA. It was a glorious failure and one that also says a lot about the role of women scientists in the academia of a half century ago.  Her work later was cited by Crick and Watson, the scientists who won the Nobel for their DNA research, and some say it was in fact Franklin who made the crucial discoveries.


PRIDE @ PREJUDICE
By Jane Austen, adapted by Daniel Elihu Kramer
March 24 – April 8, 2017 in the Nesbitt/Elliott Playhouse Theater

Watch Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy fall in love all over again -- this time filtered through the world of the internet. Modern voices interject and build on this classic love story in the form of blog posts, chat room discussions, quotes from film adaptations, and even letters from Ms. Austen herself to create a delightfully postmodern view of 19th century England. Written for five actors to play every role, PRIDE@PREJUDICE is a hilarious and moving homage to Jane Austen's most beloved novel, as well our love affair with reading.

WITTENBERG 
by David Davalos
April 20 - 29, 2017,  TBA)

Back by popular demand!  It is October 1517 in northern Germany and the characters of Hamlet, his mentor John Faustus, and Faustus’ colleague and Hamlet’s instructor and priest Martin Luther all collide in a brilliant theatrical construction by David Davalos. Local critics and patrons found Wittenberg to be entertaining and intellectually satisfying.

“Fact plus fiction equals big laughs in Southwest Shakespeare’s ‘Wittenberg’” -- Kerry Lengel, The Arizona Republic

"To be fully realized, Davalos's work requires a performance of equal mastery. The cast of Southwest Shakespeare Company's current production of WITTENBERG, astutely directed by Kent Burnham, more than rises to the challenge." -- Herb Paine, Broadway World/BMW Reviews

“Zany and thought-provoking aren’t two descriptions that usually go together, yet the smartly written Wittenberg manages to be both and it also doesn’t require you to have a philosophy or theology degree to easily comprehend the ideas, themes, and debates the play raises.” -- Gil Benbrook, Talkinbroadway

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