IN TIME OF ROSES at Clarice Smith Center to Reveal Margaret of Anjou's Journey, 4/26-5/4

The story of Margaret of Anjou has been fictionalized by some of the most notable authors throughout literature. She is arguably one of William Shakespeare's greatest female creations, in the same league with Cleopatra and Lady Macbeth, but how much do we really know of her epic journey from girlhood to motherhood, from throne to battlefield, and from love to loss and exile?

Playwright and UMD Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies Professor, Ashley Smith, lifts Margaret's story-thread from Shakespeare's vast and complex Wars of the Roses tapestry, interlacing it with texts from Shakespeare's sonnets and original material, in his bold, sexy, and fast-paced political thriller In Time of Roses, debuting at the Clarice Smith Performing Arts Center from April 26-May 4.

In Time of Roses, which is also directed by Smith, details the story of Margaret of Anjou in chronological sequence, focusing on the love triangle between Margaret, King Henry VI and the Earl of Suffolk.

Smith notes, "I'm particularly interested in how the seduction and conscription of Margaret-Suffolk's plot to sell her into marriage to King Henry in order to "rule both her, the king and realm"-was, as Shakespeare imagined it, the spark that ignited the Wars of the Roses and transformed the youngest son of the House of York into the most brilliant and diabolical villain in western literature: Richard III."

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