Sarah Mantell's EVERYTHING THAT NEVER HAPPENED Arrives at Baltimore Center Stage 

What if Shakespeare got it all wrong? Baltimore Center Stage steps into the intersection of The Merchant of Venice and Jewish history with Sarah Mantell's Everything That Never Happened. Directed by Jessica Kubzansky, the show runs February 13 through March 9, 2025. 

In Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, a merchant named Antonio defaults on a large loan provided by a Jewish moneylender, Shylock, with seemingly inevitable fatal consequences. The play is best known for Shylock's demand of a "pound of flesh,” and The Merchant of Venice has been considered anti-Semitic for decades as scholars, theater artists, and audiences continue to debate the issue. The Anti-Defamation League points out that “Over four hundred years after The Merchant of Venice was first written, the debate rages on about

Shakespeare's intentions regarding the character of Shylock, whether the play is anti-Semitic or a criticism of the Christian anti-Semitism of Shakespeare's time.” How are we to take this money-hungry usurer, who tries to claim a pound of another human's flesh in payment of a debt? And what bearing does Shylock's religion have on how he is perceived by the audience? 

Whether you love Shakespeare or detest Shylock - there is something in Everything That Never Happened for you. Jessica and Lorenzo are in love, but to be together they must plan an escape from her father's house, the Venetian Ghetto, and her entire culture. Everything That Never Happened is a time-bending story, rich with humor and heartbreak, about disguise, romantic intrigue, and the terrible price we must sometimes pay to be free. 

Playwright Sarah Mantell took issue with The Merchant of Venice and many of the stereotypes that it elevates. Sarah felt that in writing this play, “they were wrestling with Shakespeare in a dirty ditch.” Mantell says that the stereotypes in the play have been used as “an excuse to harm an entire ethnicity/religion/culture of people for a very long time. I wanted to write a play that allowed these characters to speak in Jewish voices for the first time. To give them back their history, their humor, their heartbreak.” 

Director Jessica Kubzansky says, “I fell in love with Sarah's play the moment I read it! I'm a self-proclaimed ‘Shakespeare freak,' but I have always wrestled mightily with the anti-semitism, misogyny, and racism at the heart of The Merchant of Venice.” She continued, “I am gobsmacked by the deeper cultural waters Sarah is swimming in, the comment their play is making on our society past and present, on the ancestral memory of othered groups, on privilege and pain and passing.”  

Everything That Never Happened premiered at Boston Court Pasadena in 2018. Jessica Kubzansky, Artistic Director 

Everything That Never Happened was developed as part of The Playwrights Realm's Writing Fellowship (Katherine Kovner, Founding Artistic Director | Roberta Pereira, Producing Director) 

The cast includes Erika Soto as “Jessica”, Nic Picou as “Lorenzo”, Leo Marks as “Shylock.”and Allison Wick as “Gobbo”.

The creative team includes Director Jessica Kubzansky, Assistant Director Dante Fields, Composer and Sound Designer John Nobori, Associate Sound Designer Caitlin Leong, Costume Designer Mel Ng, Scenic Designer Anton Volovsek, Lighting Designer Sim Carpenter, Associate Lighting Designer Tyrell Stanley, Stage Manager Luisa Ann Torres, Assistant Stage Manager Caroline Ragland, and Casting by The Telsey Office, Destiny Lilly, CSA. 

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