Play On Shakespeare Reveals Summer 2024 Season

Play On Shakespeare has announced their Summer 2024 Season.

Building upon Play On Shakespeare’s mission to enhance the understanding of Shakespeare’s plays in performance, Play On Podcasts bring timeless tales directly to modern audiences. The series – presented by Next Chapter Podcasts in partnership with Play On Shakespeare – has released Macbeth, Pericles, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Coriolanus amongst various other titles over the last three years.

Play On Podcasts recently won two Signal Awards – for Best Original Music/Score (Gold) and for Best Scripted Fiction (Silver). Play On Podcasts also recently won at The Ambies – for Best Original Score and Music Supervision [Lindsay Jones for Othello].

This summer, Play On Podcasts releases The Taming of the Shrew. Amy Freed’s modern verse translation is presented as satire in which the two smartest people in the room come together to tame the society that surrounds them. Direction by Art Manke; adapted by Amy Freed and Leanna Keyes. The series is set in Renaissance Italy.

As You Like It – in a modern verse translation by David Ivers; direction by Kim Martin Cotten – will follow later this summer.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Inferno Theatre
July 20 - August 11
Translation: Jeff Whitty
Direction: Giulio Cesare Perrone
Location: John Hinkel Park Amphitheatre [Berkeley, CA]

A Midsummer Night’s Dream pushes theatricality to the limits, inviting the audience to abandon themselves with their eyes wide open to the “dreams” of this magical story. The magic unfolds between real and imaginary dreams surrounded by live music, movement, and Shakespeare’s own poetic words and imagery, transporting the audience to a new and enchanted world.

Coriolanus

Presented by Oregon Shakespeare Festival and Portland Center Stage
Produced in association with upstart crow collective and Play On Shakespeare
July 23 - October 13
Translation: Sean San José
Adaption and Direction: Rosa Joshi
Location: Thomas Theatre [Ashland, OR]

When civil unrest wracks Rome as the famine-ravaged underclass battle the ruling elite, a war hero steps into the spotlight to serve his nation—only to turn on it and seek its overthrow. Shakespeare’s rarely produced tragedy comes to visceral life in a powerful, movement-focused production featuring a cast of female and non-binary actors. 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Idaho Shakespeare Festival in partnership with Great Lakes Theater
August 9 - 31
Translation: Jeff Whitty
Direction: Sara Bruner
Location: The Idaho Shakespeare Festival Amphitheater & Reserve [Boise, ID]

An exhilarating night of midsummer madness, this magical comedy brims with mistaken identity, mismatched lovers, and mischief-making fairies. This modern verse translation of Shakespeare’s comic masterpiece ensnares two pairs of lovers and a rustic troupe of would-be actors in a forest full of comedic adventure. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a joyful celebration of love lost, transformed, and restored that casts a powerfully pleasing spell.

A second leg of A Midsummer Night’s Dream will take place this fall in Cleveland, OH at Great Lakes Theater.

Richard II

Co-production with Play On Shakespeare and the Magic Theatre
August 21 - September 8
Translation: Naomi Iizuka
Direction: Dr. Karina Gutierrez
Location: Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture [San Francisco, CA]

Richard II is Shakespeare's examination of the destructive powers of privilege. In the second half of the Iizuka Repertory at The Magic, the company from the world premiere of Garuda's Wing will perform a new, lean production of Iizuka's Richard II shaped for this company. This will be the first Shakespeare produced by The Magic Theatre in decades and will feature POC, women, and queer folx throughout. 

ACMRS Press [Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies] has released all of Play On Shakespeare’s translations in print (39 titles).

Play On Shakespeare’s DEMOS project is available on YouTube. The DEMOS project is a series of vibrant, short films that demonstrate side-by-side performances of Shakespeare’s original text and the modern translations featuring extraordinarily talented actors with a wealth of experience performing Shakespeare. 

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