Commonwealth Shakespeare Company Announces 2018-2019 Season

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company Founding Artistic Director Steven Malerannounced today the 2018-19 Season, to be presented at the Sorenson Center for the Arts at Babson College in Wellesley, as well as in downtown Boston.

Mr. Maler commented: "This season brings together classic and contemporary in a celebration of the urgency and power of human connection. One of the most important living dramatists, Caryl Churchill explores the heartbreaking need of family and the shards of memories we leave behind in Blue Kettle and Here We Go. Naomi Wallace's touching and poetic adaptation of William Wharton's novel Birdy plumbs the depths of friendship as two young men, broken by war, struggle to save each other and themselves through the power of love. Our STAGE2 production of Romeo & Juliet examines the underlying questions the play asks - about adolescence, gender expectations, attraction, and love. For our 24th year of Free Shakespeare on the Common, we turn to one of Shakespeare's romance plays, Cymbeline, a fairy tale of a play that contains crazy plot twists, a wicked queen/step mother, long lost children, suffering and tragic losses; but as in all of the late plays, it contains intense joy, absurdly comic moments, magic, profound reclamation and stirring beauty."

Specific details of CSC's offerings are below:

Universe Rushing Apart: Blue Kettle & Here We Go

Two one-act plays by Caryl Churchill, directed by Bryn Boice

November 7-10, 2018 at 7:30pm, November 15-17, 2018 at 7:30pm, November 11, 17, 18, 2018 at 3pm.

Sorenson Black Box, Babson College

Commonalties with a surrealist bent are explored in two one-acts by renowned playwright Caryl Churchill. In Blue Kettle, anxieties emerge when a con artist claims to be the long lost son of elderly women who gave him up for adoption. In Here We Goa funeral party for a man with an adventurous past forces a group of women to capture flickering moments of their own lives as they grapple with their own mortality.

Tickets: $40, Seniors (65+) $36, Babson faculty, staff, and non-Babson students $15, Babson students $5

* Blue Kettle and Here We go are presented by special arrangement with SAMUEL FRENCH

Birdy

Adapted by Naomi Wallace from the novel by William Wharton

directed by Steven Maler
February 27-March 3, 2019 and March 7-10, 2019.

Press opening on Thursday, February 28, 2019 at 7:30pm.

Carling-Sorenson Theater, Babson College

The journey of Birdy and his friend Al seen both as young men in Philadelphia in the years just before World War II and as wounded soldiers bearing the mental and physical scars of war.

Tickets $50, Babson faculty/staff and non-Babson students $15; Babson students $5

*By special arrangement with Knight Hall Agency Ltd and Spring Sirkin.

Romeo & Juliet

by William Shakespeare, directed by Adam Sanders

featuring the CSC2 Company of early-career actors
Carling-Sorenson Theater, Babson College

Student matinee performances: May 23 - 31, 2019

Public performance: May 31, 2019 at 7:30pm.

Shakespeare's drama of doomed teenage love between Romeo, son of the Montagues, and Juliet, the daughter of the Capulets, the children of Verona's two feuding families. When they meet at a ball, their immediate love blossoms and accepts no barriers, with tragic results.

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's Stage2 Performance Series provides the opportunity for students and their teachers to attend high-quality live theater created with them in mind. These abridged productions use Shakespeare's original text, and focus on the themes and stories that will resonate most with young audiences. Performed by our young professional CSC2 Acting Company, these performances bring together the next generation of actors with the next generation theater goers.

Tickets $8 for student matinee performances.

Tickets $20 for public performance.

Cymbeline - Free Shakespeare on the Common

by William Shakespeare, directed by Fred Sullivan, Jr.

July - August, 2019

Cymbeline tells the stunning tale of a King and his three children lifted into a nearly mythic realm of deception and intrigue with mistaken identities, twists and turns, and the all-consuming quest for true love.

All dates, times, artists, and programs are subject to change. Tickets will go on sale the end of August. For performance times and additional information, or to purchase tickets, visit www.commshakes.org 781-239-5880

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