Lantern Theater Company Presents William Shakespeare's Political and Psychological Thriller CORIOLANUS

Lantern Theater Company continues its 2016/17 season with its annual Shakespeare production, the rarely performed Coriolanus. Lantern Artistic Director Charles McMahon will direct a cast that includes internationally acclaimed actress, director, and author Tina Packer as Volumnia, Robert Lyons as Coriolanus, with Chris Anthony, David Bardeen, Mary Lee Bednarek, Kirk Wendell Brown, Charlie DelMarcelle, Leonard C. Haas, Adam Hammet, Brian McCann, Hannah Van Sciver, and Brock D. Vickers. Theater critics and members of the press are invited to attend opening night on Wednesday, March 15 at 7 p.m. A full schedule is included in the fact sheet below.

In this timely story of politics and radical class division, famine threatens Rome and the people's hunger swells to an appetite for change. A war hero from a powerful family, Coriolanus seems destined to be elected consul - but the people find his pride an unforgivable insult, exploding the long-simmering tensions between the governing elite and deprived masses.

"Coriolanus' Rome is a young republic whose institutions are failing when a restive working class makes angry demands of the Senate, and a powerful foreign enemy presses them from the outside," said Lantern Artistic Director and Coriolanus director Charles McMahon. "In writing about Rome, Shakespeare was offering perspective on the turmoil in his own time, as angry populist leaders in the countryside mobilized against a remote and out of touch landowning class. Coriolanus is a fascinating political and psychological play, and one that has chilling echoes down through the ages. I believe audiences will find that the play feels very current."

Tickets for Coriolanus are $24 - $42 and are available online at www.lanterntheater.org or by calling the Lantern Box Office at (215) 829-0395. Student tickets are $15 in advance; $10 student rush tickets are available 10 minutes before curtain with valid ID. Discounts are also available for theater industry professionals ($10 in advance or at the door), seniors 65 and up, groups of 10 or more, and U.S. military personnel. Lantern Theater Company is located at St. Stephen's Theater, 10th & Ludlow Sts. in Center City Philadelphia.