THE TAMING OF THE SHRE Comes to Chicago Shakespeare

Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) Artistic Director Barbara Gaines stages Shakespeare's raucous comedy The Taming of the Shrew with a powerhouse, all-woman cast-setting up a witty and thought-provoking debate on politics, power, and love. Framed as a performance by a band of Suffragettes with additional dialogue by Second City's Ron West, The Taming of the Shrew launches Chicago Shakespeare's 2017/18 Season in the Courtyard Theater, now through November 12, 2017.

The year is 1919 and, amidst suffrage marches in Chicago, a women's theater troupe is convening to rehearse their upcoming comedy: The Taming of the Shrew. In the play, fortune-seeking suitors compete for the hand of the demure Bianca, but her father has decreed that her fiery and tempestuous sister Katherine must wed first. Petruchio takes on the task of wooing and winning her-and so begins the notorious battle of wits. Along the way, the Suffragettes re-examine the characters in Shakespeare's story, as well as their own status as women in society.

Production Photo 01: Katherine (Alexandra Henrikson) resists the advances of Petruchio (Crystal Lucas-Perry) in Chicago Shakespeare Theater's production of The Taming of the Shrew, conceived and directed by Barbara Gaines with Columbia Women's Club scenes by Ron West, in CST's Courtyard Theater, September 16-November 12, 2017. Photo by Liz Lauren.