Photos: THE WINTER'S TALE Opens Outdoor Summer Season At Theatricum This Weekend

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum opens its 2024 summer repertory season in rustic Topanga Canyon this weekend with “The Winter’s Tale,” William Shakespeare’s sweeping romance of passion and forgiveness. Check out the photos, below.

Theatricum is celebrated for lively, expansive productions that fill the outdoor stage and spill over into the surrounding woods. There’s no better way to watch Shakespeare come alive than by spending a summer afternoon or evening at the company’s spectacular outdoor venue, which is carved into the Topanga hillside.

Containing one of Shakespeare’s most famous stage directions (“Exit, pursued by a bear”), The Winter’s Tale is a tragedy in its first third and a comic pastoral in its second, then finally resolves itself in romance. In a jealous rage, King Leontes (Aaron Hendry) falsely accuses his wife, Hermione (Willow Geer), of adultery with his best friend, King Polixenes (Max Lawrence). Their baby daughter, Perdita (Sophia Dawson), cast out to die, is adopted by an old shepherd (Earnestine Phillips) and secretly grows up in Polixenes’ kingdom as a shepherdess. When Polixenes discovers that his son (Christian Jordan Smith) has fallen in love with Perdita, he forbids their marriage and the lovers flee. Through the inadvertent help of a comic pickpocket (Gerald C. Rivers), a clown (Daniel Ramirez) and two shepherdesses (Aubrey Sage and Liza Rash), the lovers and their parents are reunited, and old wounds are healed through the forgiving power of love. Also in the cast are Tim Halligan as Antigonus; Michelle Jasso as Emelia; Melora Marshall as Paulina; Franc Ross as Camillo; and Andy Stokan as Archidamus. Kevin Rauch plays Cleomenes, Timothy Willard portrays a lord, and Aralyn Wilson is Leontes’ young son, Mamillius.

The Winter’s Tale opens on Saturday, June 1 at 7:30 p.m. and continues to run in repertory through September 30. For more information and to purchase tickets, visit theatricum.com.

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