We Players' MACBETH Will Return to Fort Point this June

We Players, in partnership with the National Park Service / Golden Gate National Recreation Area will present a site-integrated production of Shakespeare's Macbeth at Fort Point, the civil war era fortress located beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. The production previews May 30 - June 1, then runs June 5 through June 29, 2014, Thursday through Sunday. Tickets sales begin March 17. For press ticket reservations and more information please call 415.547.0189 or email press@weplayers.org.

MACBETH AT FORT POINT IN 2014
After critically acclaimed production runs in 2008 and in 2013, We Players remounts Macbeth at Fort Point in the winding dark stone corridors, narrow passageways, expansive brick casemates, and inner chambers of the fort. Why remount this production? In October 2013, the dark clouds of the US government shutdown hovered over its production of Macbeth at Fort Point, forcing the company to cancel numerous performances and disappoint over 1,000 ticket holders. We Players gives Macbeth a renewed life by producing an exciting re-development this spring. It is also an opportunity to share this powerful and unique performance with a wider audience and with those who were turned away last fall.

In its upcoming 2014 production, We Players shifts the perspective. Co-directors Ava Roy and John Hadden will explore this tale of blood and the thirst for power through the lens of the "old guard": Warriors who have engaged in battle for decades; who are older than their young wives; who are the same age as their King. We Players believes this will provide new insights into the story and its portrayal. Founding Artistic Director, Ava Roy comments, "We are eager to dive even deeper into the richness of the text, the subtleties of the relationships between characters, and to search for further nuance in the language and in our connection with the very stones of the fortress."

2014 production cast members will include a host of We Players' alumni:

• John Hadden as Macbeth (Fool in Twelfth Nigh or What You Will at Hyde Street Pier)
• Scott Phillips as Macduff (Claudius in Hamlet on Alcatraz)
• Jack Halton as Banquo (Polonius in Hamlet on Alcatraz)
• Nathaniel Justinianio as Ross (Zeus in The Odyssey on Angel Island State Park)
• Returning performers include: Ava Roy as Lady Macbeth; Steve Boss as both Duncan and Porter; and Caroline Parsons, Julie Douglas and Maria Leigh continuing their work as the three Weyard Sisters

As with recent performances on Alcatraz and Angel Island State Park, We Players continues its collaboration with the National Park Service to connect people with local Bay Area public spaces through site-integrated theatre. "An essential goal of our work is to inspire in our audience personal relationships with the places in which we play," says Ava Roy, the company's Artistic Director. Its upcoming production is located inside Fort Point, in the direct onslaught of the billowing fog and relentless wind. The Golden Gate Bridge soars overhead and the city skyline flickers giving audiences a full sensory immersion into Macbeth's Scotland as it collides with Civil War era and modern day San Francisco.

Photo by Jamie Lyons

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