As part of Shakespeare & Company’s commitment to nurturing new voices in theatre and presenting cutting edge works, the 14th annual Studio Festival of Plays (one day only: Monday, September 1) is an annual vehicle for exploring new plays and plays that may receive full productions in a future season. The five selected plays are presented as workshop performances, with varying degrees of staging and production elements.
“I’ve tried to include plays that embody very distinct voices,” associate artistic director Michael Hammond says. “The stories and characters in these plays inhabit very different worlds, but what they have in common is passion and intensity laced with humor.”
Over the past fourteen years, the Festival has presented many works that subsequently were given full productions in the Company’s regular season, including Mrs. Klein, Fortune and Misfortune, Laughing Wild, Goodnight Desdemona Good Morning Juliet, The Turn of the Screw, Brief Lives, Betrayal, The Mistress, Wit, Summer, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), A Tanglewood Tale, The Scarlet Letter, Ice Glen, Hamlet, Martha Mitchell Calling, No Background Music and last year’s hit of the Festival The Goatwoman of Corvis County—which is currently receiving a full production in the new Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre.
“The Studio Festival is important to us because it gives us an opportunity to explore plays together,” Hammond continues. “I look at dozens and dozens of scripts and script synopses over the course of a year, but the Studio Festival is an opportunity for the Company and audience to have a look, as well.”
This year’s titles are White People by J.T. Rogers, The Dreamer Examines His Pillow by John Patrick Shanley, The Children by Michael Elyanow, Through the Leaves by Franz Xaver Kroetz and The Holocaust Kid by Sonia Pilcer. (Click here for more info on these titles.)
Tickets for Festival productions are a $15 suggested donation per show, or a $60 suggested donation for a Festival Pass which gives admittance to all performances. For tickets and information, call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or purchase online.
Have you seen this year’s Studio Festival readings? Leave us a comment and share what you thought about the plays!
