Broadway Veteran, Emmy Winner Peter Macon to Play Othello at 58th Annual Colorado Shakespeare Festival

Emmy Award-winning actor Peter Macon will headline the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's 2015 professional acting company, which also features a real-life Shakespeare love story, a reunion of old friends and perennial favorites in challenging new roles.

Macon will star as the noble, tragic Othello, reprising a role he played at the storied Oregon Shakespeare Festival 2008 and Minneapolis' prestigious Guthrie Theater in 2014.

"Macon is powerfully built and possesses the kind of deep voice that sounds like it comes direct from Olympus. He's a terrific physical example of Othello, and it's a pleasing paradox to see all his might turn to puppy-love-flavored Jell-O in the presence of his bride," writes the St. Paul Pioneer-Press.

Macon has multiple Broadway and Off Broadway credits and his film and television credits include roles on Dexter, The Shield and Law and Order. He received a 2002 Emmy Award for his voiceover performance on Animal Tales of the World.

Other highlights from the 2015 acting company include:

Geoffrey Kent, a favorite at CSF for his comic roles and ingenious direction, will play Macon's foil as Iago, one of Shakespeare's most complex and sinister villains.

Polish-born actor Laura Baranik, a veteran of the stage in Prague and New York who speaks four languages, will play Othello's wife Desdemona.

Rising young star Benjamin Bonenfant returns as the title role in Henry V, continuing the story of the young prince he played in Henry IV, parts 1 and 2 in 2014.

Peter Simon Hilton and Vanessa Morosco will play the lovers Beatrice and Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing. The couple met while playing Mistress and Master Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival,and celebrated their first anniversary in CSF's production of the same play last summer.

Denver Center for the Performing Arts favorite Lawrence Hecht-last seen at CSF as a most unusual Puck in Kent's 2013 hit, A Midsummer Night's Dream-will play a devilish Dr. Faustus to an uptight Martin Luther played by his early-career colleague and West Coast star Howard Swain in the brainy, zany 15th-century campus caper, Wittenberg.

The season will star many other award winners and crowd favorites, including Jenna Bainbridge, Sean Scrutchins (Henry, Westword awards, 2012; True West Award, 2014), Denver Center "man of a thousand faces" Rodney Lizcano, and more.

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