Colorado Shakespeare Festival announces 2016 season lineup
Myths, legends and fairy tales highlight 59th season. Season tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 2 and single tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 30.
On the heels of its most successful and well-received season to date, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival at the University of Colorado Boulder has set its 2016 season, which will run Friday, June 3, 2016 through Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016. Opening with Shakespeare’s farcical The Comedy of Errors, the festival’s 10-week season also includes the regional premiere of Bill Cain’s Equivocation, along with Troilus and Cressida,Cymbeline and Henry VI, Part 2, an original practices performance (see event dates, locations and descriptions below).
Season tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 2 and single tickets go on sale Monday, Nov. 30.
“We’re celebrating the myths, legends and fairy tales of Shakespeare,” says CSF Producing Artistic Director Tim Orr. “It’s also an artistically ambitious season, and one that’s particularly exciting and engaging for the whole family. We’re especially proud to present plays that—like Troilus and Cressida,last staged in the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre in 1964—don’t come around very often. Or a play like Equivocation that’s brand new to our audiences.”
COLORADO SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL 2016
The Comedy of Errors | Friday, June 3-Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016 | Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre
From the creative mind behind the CSF’s triumphant A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2013), The Comedy of Errors is Shakespeare’s purest comedy—with a twist. Set in jazzy, sexy 1930s Paris, this hilarious new production bends the classic adventure of mistaken identities in a different direction that puts the women in charge…and the men in their places. Sultry singing, cabaret nightlife, puns and punchlines, this is Comedy, inside out. Directed by Geoffrey Kent, versatile and highly-acclaimed CSF director, fight choreographer and actor for more than 12 years.
Equivocation by Bill Cain | REGIONAL PREMIERE | Thursday, June 16-Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016 | University Theatre
Reluctant playwright and sleuth “Shag”—aka William Shakespeare—finds himself at the perilous crossroads between artistic integrity and survival when King James I commissions him to rewrite the history of England’s infamous Gunpowder Plot. Under the Orwellian gaze of a security state not far removed from today’s headlines, he must find a way to tell the truth without selling his soul. Equivocation is “like nothing you’ve seen before.” (Broadway World) Directed by Wendy Franz, founding member, director and producer of Denver’s Paragon Theatre.
Troilus and Cressida | Friday, June 24-Saturday, Aug. 6, 2016 | Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre
God-like heroes, embattled kings, doomed love, and a sinister, snarky clown make Shakespeare’s epic of the Trojan War one of his greatest legends. Like grown-up versions of Romeo and Juliet all too familiar with life’s stark realities, the eponymous lovers face painful choices in this mythic mélange of drama, comedy and history. Directed by Carolyn Howarth, director of the CSF’s 2015 critically-acclaimed “Henry V.”
Cymbeline | Thursday, July 14-Sunday, Aug. 7, 2016 | University Theatre
Cymbeline is a vassal king of the mighty Roman Empire, but Britain herself remains a wild and untamed land in this mythic, idyllic romance. When the king banishes Posthumus—his beautiful daughter’s illicit, low-born husband—Imogen flees into a Welsh forest that still rings with Britain’s legendary past. By turns comic, heroic and harrowing, this tale of gods and villains, lovers and warriors, brings the entire CSF company together onstage. Directed by Jim Helsinger, artistic director of the Orlando Shakespeare Festival and director of the CSF’s 2015 smash hit “Much Ado About Nothing.”
Henry VI, Part 2 | Sunday, July 31, 2016 (one night only) | Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre
Summer 2016’s hottest ticket is a single performance of Henry VI, Part 2—the latest of the CSF’s widely hailed “original practices” productions on one of America’s most iconic outdoor stages. Shakespeare’s razor-sharp exploration of England’s War of the Roses, which also inspired the hit cable series Game of Thrones,drives toward the thrilling conclusion of one of his greatest cycles. All previous “OP” shows sold out months in advance—don’t miss it!
(Photo above by Jennifer Koskinen: Geoffrey Kent as Don Pedro in last season’s blockbuster production, Much Ado About Nothing)