BWW Previews: Kentucky Shakespeare Announces Ambitious 54th Season

Kentucky Shakespeare's 54th season will be its biggest in years - possibly ever.

To a class of Youth Performing Arts School Students who had just experienced the "Inspecting Shakespeare" educational exploration program, Kentucky Shakespeare Producing Artistic Director Matt Wallace announced the full lineup for the 2014 season.

At the center will be three mainstay productions at the C. Douglas Ramey Ampitheatre in Central Park: one comedy, one history and one tragedy.

Leading off the season will be the comedy: "A Midsummer Night's Dream," directed by Wallace himself, running June 11-22. This will be followed by the history play "Henry V," directed by Amy Attaway, co-Artistic Director of Theatre [502], running June 25-July 6. The tragedy will be "Hamlet," also directed by Wallace, running July 15-27.

The plays will close their mainstage run with two weeks of rotating repertory in which all three will be performed at the same time, on different nights. This will be the first time three Kentucky Shakespeare mainstage productions have run in repertory in 25 years.

The Globe Players, Kentucky Shakespeare's six-week training program for high school students, will also perform the comedy "Love's Labours Lost" July 31-August 3.

The company will also be taking the Bard beyond the Central Park stage with Shakespeare in the Parks, a touring production of a 90-minute Hamlet throughout the park system of Louisville. Seven city council members have signed on to support bringing Shakespeare performance throughout Jefferson County.

Meanwhile, Kentucky Shakespeare is opening the Ramey Ampitheatre stage to Louisville's other Shakespeare performing troupes. The season will close with two weeks of performances by community partners.

Week one (August 5-10) will featuring Le Petomane Theatre Ensemble's much-lauded Old West interpretation of "As You LIke It," last performed at the Rudyard Kipling in 2009. "As You Like It" will run in rotating repertory with Walden Theatre's student production of "Pericles."

Week two (August 12-17) of the community partners showcase will feature "King Lear" performed by Savage Rose Classical Theatre Company running in rotation with "Women of Will," a collection of monologues and scenes featuring the women of Shakespeare's plays, presented by Shoestring Productions.

All together, it will be 10 weeks, eight productions, and 56 nights of theatre featuring a wide range of local talent representing Louisville theater in the nation's longest-running free Shakespeare festival. More information will become available as the season approaches at Kentucky Shakespeare's official website, kyshakespeare.com.

To post a comment, you must register and login.