Saratoga Shakespeare Announces 2017 Season

The Saratoga Shakespeare Company will celebrate the romance and magic of both summer and winter with two of Shakespeare's productions this summer. A Midsummer Night's Dream opens on Tuesday, July 18th and runs through Saturday, July 29th. The Winter's Tale opens on Tuesday, August 1st and runs through Saturday, August 5th. All performances will be in Congress Park, Saratoga Springs, on the Alfred Z. Solomon Stage, at 6 pm. Admission is always free of charge, and Congress Park is entirely accessible. Young and old and family groups are strongly encouraged to attend with or without the picnics that have become a Saratoga tradition.

A Midsummer Night's Dream will be directed by Wesley Broulik. Saratoga Shakespeare audiences will remember his recent performances with the company as Don Armado in Love's Labour's Lost and as Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano. Broulik has extensive directing credits and currently teaches at the Johnny Carson School of Theatre & Film at the University of Nebraska - Lincoln. The production will feature members of Actors' Equity, the actors' professional union. In addition, a talented group of other professional actors and interns will fill out the cast.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is one of Shakespeare's most beloved and popular comedies, featuring appealing young lovers, magical sprites and fairies, and hysterically funny rustics. All encounter one another in an enchanted and fantastical world one summer night when everything is upended. Here "the course of true love never did run smooth."

Since 2000, these productions have become a much loved Saratoga tradition, and many children have grown up watching Shakespeare every summer. The company has always taken great pride in presenting Shakespeare's work with great clarity and in a fun-filled and exciting manner.

Last season the company presented two productions in Congress Park for the first time and audiences responded extremely well. This year's second production during the final week of the season will be Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale with a cast of professional actors. Director Liz Carlson has worked with many well-known New York City and regional theatres. She is a founding member of Naked Angels, a NYC-based theatre company. One of the last plays written by Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale is a timeless and enchanting tale of love, loss, jealousy and redemption. A masterful blend of tragedy and comedy with a most surprising ending, the play features the theatre's most intriguing stage direction - "Exit, pursued by bear."

Additionally, the Saratoga Shakespeare Young Theatre Professional Company will offer Twelfth Night, directed by longtime company member Tim Dugan. Dugan serves as an associate artistic director and director of education and training for the company. Performances will take place during the first week of August in multiple locations including Congress Park and Skidmore College's Suzanne Corbet Thomas Amphitheater. These college-aged aspiring theatre artists will train extensively and will perform alongside professional actors in A Midsummer Night's Dream.

For further information, visit www.saratogashakespeare.com or Saratoga Shakespeare's Facebook page, or call 518-428-2703 or 518-587-2166.

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