Shakespeare & Company’s first-ever Holiday production, Cindy Bella (or The Glass Slipper) plays its second and final weekend—the show closes Sunday after just eleven performances. Written by Irina Brook and Anna Brownsted and directed by Brook, the show’s modern take on the classic Cinderella story has been welcomed by the critics:

“a silly bit of Holiday wackiness…Take the kids.”
—Berkshire Fine Arts

“an enjoyable evening of silliness and schtick, complete with a magical, fairy-tale happy ending”
—Berkshire Living

“a lot of fun, just the thing to brighten the holiday season”
—Advocate Weekly

There are so many ways to snag discounted tickets to this family friendly show. All our discounts for Berkshire residents, teachers, active duty military personnel, Senior Citizens, and students still apply.

Plus, our Family Thursdays discount is back! On December 17, tickets for families or groups of four to six people are $15 each and tickets for families or groups of seven to ten people are $10 each. Buy tickets now!

Tina and Elizabeth discuss the upcoming season titles, returning to Shakespeare & Company’s creative roots and Joe Donahue’s wish to be Tina Packer when he grows up. Listen below or visit WAMC’s website.

Dear Friends,

You will love what we have in store for 2009/2010. After planning 32 seasons, I can positively say this is the most daring, powerful, impassioned line up that we have ever brought to stage.  I turn the Artistic Director reins (or is it a whip?) over to Tony Simotes at the close of 2009, so I am especially keen in making this a thunderous season.

In the face of today’s economic climate, I am especially proud to say that Shakespeare & Company is standing firm and fast on our mission to bring the raw power of Shakespeare’s language and important modern voices to more audiences and keep tickets affordable to everyone.

EDIT: Tickets are now available for purchase online! The Box Office will begin taking phone orders Thursdays and Fridays from 11am-5pm, beginning March 12th. Stay tuned to our website for further Box Office Hours.

(Shakespeare & Company Members may purchase tickets over the phone this week—Thursday & Friday only—by calling 413-637-1199 ext 305).

This will be a season of ‘life laid bare’ and costs kept spare. Our shows will be simple, stripped down and sparingly beautiful, but we are doing more, performing more, playing more than ever before. Shakespeare & Company is not shrinking back. We will play on! I hope you’ll be play on with us. Join us for Shakespeare, and new voices. Music, clowning and spontaneity across our meadow and stages. More dialogue, discovery and delight for all!

Tina Packer
Founding Artistic Director

Our 2009-2010 brochure will be hitting your mailbox within the next several weeks. Make sure your mailing address is up to date by logging into OvationTix and clicking on “My Account”.

In Founders’ Theatre

Hamlet

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Eleanor Holdridge
Featuring Jason Asprey as Hamlet, Tina Packer as Queen Gertrude, Dennis Krausnick as Polonius

Shakespeare’s uncontested masterpiece played to packed houses in 2006, and returns for a limited run.

June 26-August 28

Othello

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Tony Simotes
Featuring John Douglas Thompson as Othello and Michael Hammond as Iago

The gut-wrenching story of love, racism and betrayal that’s as startling, relevant and timely today as when it first performed over 400 years ago returns.

July 3 – Sept. 6

Twelfth Night

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Jonathan Croy

Some comedies are born great. Some achieve greatness. Some have greatness thrust upon them. The laughs are back-to-back, tipsy-turvy and echo all through the house in Shakespeare’s festive holiday of misrule, madness, switched identities, gender bending and comic fantasy

July 25 – Sept. 5

In The Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre

Romeo and Juliet

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Jonathan Croy

The story of family and gang rivalry and the treasure and tragedy of forbidden teenage love. A seamless, high energy, heart-pounding and soul-touching production that lays bare the best and worst of human spirit.

May 21 – June 7

Pinter’s Mirror

Three of Harold Pinter’s best one act plays: Family Voices, Victoria Station, A Slight Ache
Directed by Normi Noel
Cast includes Elizabeth Ingram, Malcolm Ingram

Three brilliant one-act plays commemorating the darkly comedic insight of Harold Pinter. Performed by Elizabeth and Malcolm Ingram, a rare chance to see and hear exceptionally gifted actors breath life into Pinter’s taut language.

June 11- August 2

Measure for Measure

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Dave Demke
Performed by Performance Intern Program participants

New this season! Lunch Box Shakespeare: Isabella, must choose between the death of her condemned brother or to give up her virginity to a corrupt politician who can commute the sentence. Written as a thinly veiled comedy about hypocrisy, corruption and sex for trade in high places, contemporary audiences than ever. A boxed lunch will be served prior to the performance.

July 10 – Sept. 5, 12:45pm

The Devil’s Advocate

By Donald Freed, Winner of the PEN Literary Award for Drama, 2006
Directed by Dee Evans
With Dennis Krausnick and Ignatius Anthony

On Christmas Eve, 1989, Panamanian strongman Manuel took refuge from American troops in the Vatican embassy. From that night comes a boiling political dialogue about the shadowy history of the American Empire.

July 30 – Aug. 16

The Dreamer Examines His Pillow

By John Patrick Shanley
Directed by Tod Randolph
Featuring John Douglas Thompson

John Patrick Shanley’s works have won the Academy Award, Pulitzer Prize, Tony Award, Drama Desk Award and critical acclaim everywhere. This rarely performed early work brings out his most biting comic sensibilities and words that lay bare the dreams of love and the realities of living.

Aug. 7 – Sept. 6

White People

By J.T. Rogers
Directed by Anna Brownsted

What does it mean to be a white American? A brutally honest and surprisingly funny examination of race and language in our culture, White People tracks the lives of three ordinary Americans, and the guilt, prejudice, and the price they pay for being born white.

Aug. 21- Sept. 4

The Hound of the Baskervilles

By Steven Canny and John Nicholson
Directed by Tony Simotes
American Premiere

A hoot. A howl. A Monty Python-like spoof in the best tradition of British beer hall comedy. Performed by three actors playing a multiple of roles, with multiple accents and quick-change beards, and stitched together by silliness and pratfalls.

Sept. 24 – Nov. 8

Cindy Bella (or The Glass Slipper)

Adapted from the classic Cinderella by Irina Brook
Directed by Irina Brook
World Premiere

A magically updated spin on the classic family folktale. Children of all ages will enjoy a contemporary, urban, romantic fairytale about a streetwise accordion player and the handsome cosmopolitan Prince who falls head over heels for her. Cindy Bella was presented as a work-in-progress last year, and now returns for its world premiere.

Dec. 3 – Dec. 20

Les Liaisons Dangereuses

By Christopher Hampton
Directed by Tina Packer
Featuring Elizabeth Aspenlieder

Devious plotting, sexual intrigue and motivations, Les Liaisons Dangereuses was ahead of its time in 1872, and remains ahead of its time today. A rich and deviously delightful feast of words and plot play, like a decadent chocolate you can’t resist.

Jan. 29 – March 14

Studio Festival of Plays

Founders’ Theatre
$16 General Admission
Festival pass to all five readings $70
A day of five staged readings of plays that we think you should know about. Festival scripts that have gone on to critical acclaim include Golda’s Balcony, Wit and Martha Mitchell Calling.

Sept. 7, 11:30am – 11:30pm

Bankside Festival

Be Free!  Family Fun on the Rose Footprint Stage. Beginning June 20th, our grounds come to life with the color and swirl of Elizabethan dance, poets and clowns, and a host of spontaneous surprises.

Toad of Toad Hall

By. A. A. Milne
Adapted from The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
Directed by Irina Brook
FREE FAMILY-FRIENDLY FUN!

A musical play by A. A. Milne, based on Kenneth Grahame’s book The Wind in the Willows, the classic children’s story with the lovable characters Rat, Toad, Mole and Badger. Performed in two parts on different days.

June 20- Aug. 29

The Declaration of Independence

July 4 on the tented Rose Footprint at 3:00pm
FREE! Reservations recommended

Hear the powerful words that gave birth to America delivered by cast members, friends and special guest speakers. Followed by a barbecue, picnicking, frisbee tossing in the Rose meadow, clowning and July 4th fun!

Wordplay

By Dennis Krausnick
Performed by our Performance Intern Program participants
World Premiere
FREE!

An outrageous splash of Shakespeare This fast-paced, funny performance offers bits of Shakespeare’s silliest and startling insults with a dash of fact, folklore, and surprise.

August 13-Sept 6

FREE! Bankside Humanities Lecture Series

Continuing the tradition of bringing conversation, dialogue and entertaining discoveries,
six free lectures, covering topics from clowning to cooking, music to movies. Speakers, topics and dates will soon be announced.

Preludes

Period dances, combat displays, Shakespearean recitations, Elizabethan music and verse, and impromptus in preparation for the mainstage show.

June 26 – Sept. 6
7:15 pm, prior to all Founders’ evening performances.

Inspirational and Educational — New Ways to Engage, Explore, and Learn

Tuesday Talks@5pm

New this year! Lively conversations with our directors, cast members and guests speakers about what’s on stage; explore the plays with artists and scholars. July 7 – August 25

Behind the Scenes Tours

New this year! Pull the curtains back and see what happens backstage, in our costume shop and in the pre-production stages. A 45-minute tour that’s good for all ages. $6 each (four people $20).

Weds. and Sat. 10am, July 1-Sept. 5

Spherical Sound

New this year! Be with us throughout the summer as resident Company composer Bill Barlcay periodically hosts an eclectic program of poetry, chamber music, slams and new, alternative music. $20 Reserved seating. July 12th-August 23.

Special Events

Will 445

Celebrate Will Shakespeare’s 445th Birthday with us and help us shake the winter dust off the rafters and bring spring sun around. Music, food, fun and an varied program Shakespeare’s words. Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre. $18. April 23, 2009.

Revolutionary Moments

Cast members will recount and replay pivotal moments and people in history as diverse as Thomas Jefferson and Nelson Mandela who were influenced by Shakespeare’s words. Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, Studio 3. $20 general admission/$10 under age 25. July 5th, 11am.

Susan Quinn presents Furious Improvisations

A multi-media presentation by Susan Quinn, author of Furious Improvisation, a recent book about the WPA Federal Theatre Project, which moved American theatre leagues ahead with projects like Orson Welles Macbeth with an all black cast. Studio 1- Bernstein Theatre, Studio 1. $20 general admission/$10 under age 25. August 23, 2pm

Shakespeare & Young Company

Come applaud our Young Company actors in this special performance of Shakespeare’s works. Hear the words with fierce, fiery temperament, and our theatres echo with the unbridled passion for love, justice and hope, as only teenagers can know it.

$12 Adults / $8 Children.

May 9 & 10, 7pm, Founders’ Theatre
Aug. 19 & Aug. 21, 5pm, Rose Footprint

Cymbeline

Based loosely on legends of an ancient Celtic King, a tale of seduction, courtly connivance and instigation, and the ultimate reunion of separated lovers. Presented by the Conservatory at Shakespeare & Company. Founders’ Theatre. $14 Reserved Seating. December 11 & 12, 7:30pm.