St. Louis Shakespeare Festival's KING LEAR With André De Shields Will be Available to Stream

The 2021 Shakespeare in the Park production of KING LEAR starring André De Shields will be available online. Tune in tonight, Wednesday, July 28 at 8 p.m. CT to watch the virtual premiere or on-demand through August 1.

King Lear was directed by Carl Cofield (Associate Artistic Director of the Classical Theatre of Harlem) and ran from Friday, June 4 at 8:00 pm through June 27 to strictly limited capacity crowds.

King Lear is considered by many to be Shakespeare's greatest - and most modern - masterpiece. A richly imaginative story of love, loyalty and unfathomable loss, it depicts a family and a nation torn apart and turned against itself by disastrous leadership. After the aging king's plan to divide his kingdom equally among his daughters goes horribly awry, he's cast out into the most famous storm in all of drama. By turns shocking and profound, Lear paints an unforgettable picture of human endurance pushed to the absolute limit by nature, violence and its own vanity.

André De Shields heads an all-BIPOC company featuring some of the finest actors out of New York, Chicago and St. Louis. He is joined by Brian Anthony Williams (The Wire, The Sopranos) as Gloucester, acclaimed Chicago and Shakespearean actor Allen Gilmore as the Fool and St. Louis legend J. Samuel Davis as Kent. The three daughters will be played by Nicole King (Cordelia) and Festival favorites Rayme Cornell (Goneril) and Jacqueline Thompson (Regan). Daniel José Molina (Oregon Shakespeare Festival) and Leland Fowler (TFANA) will play Gloucester's sons Edgar and Edmund, respectively. The company also includes Jason J. Little (Albany), Carl Overly, Jr. (Cornwall) and Michael Tran (Oswald), as well as an ensemble of actors from The Black Rep's Professional Internship Program: Kentrell Jamison, Theorri London, Brian McKinley, Tyler White and Christina Yancy.

For more information visit: https://stlshakes.org/shakespeare-in-the-park/virtual-release/