While Cincinnati Shakespeare Company bills its mission as presenting stage classics, that hasn’t stopped the organization from crafting new works and innovative productions to give audiences new perspectives on old favorites. There’s plenty of both in the company’s 2024-25 season, announced today.
Take, for example, that young prince of Denmark, who seeks to avenge his father by destroying the man who killed him – his usurping uncle – and, by the time he succeeds, leaves the entire royal family dead. In Shakespeare’s hands, the tragedy of “Hamlet” is one of the greatest plays in English. You’d think that would be enough, but the play’s depth and breadth of characters had made it fertile ground for reimagining.
That’s the genesis of CSC’s Project Hamlet, which will bring the story to life in three very different ways. As a twist on a summer reading list, see the bard’s original during this summer’s free Shakespeare in the Park series (performances run July 12 through Sept. 1). Follow that by taking in two modern takes during the mainstage season.
First up is “Fat Ham,” a barbecue-flavored retelling by James Ijames that serves its revenge char-cold. In this world, the protagonist, Juicy, is a queer Black man whose father’s ghost demands revenge during the reception after his mother’s and uncle’s wedding. Ijames’s lens is that of Black masculinity, and Juicy, who knows Hamlet’s story, tries to break the cycles of trauma and violence. There’s plenty of humor, too.
“Fat Ham” won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for drama (before it was even performed!) and, once on Broadway, was nominated for five Tony Awards, including best play. The show runs Sept. 6-22.
Then, the 2025 half of the season kicks off with “A Room in the Castle,” the world premiere production of a 2020 Cincy Shakespeare commission. Playwright Lauren Gunderson puts the spotlight on the women of “Hamlet” – Gertrude and Ophelia. Produced in partnership with the Folger Library in Washington, D.C. – not too shabby, that! – the play intertwines themes of love, intrigue and power as it explores the emotional journeys and resilience of the central female characters surrounded by the chaos of Shakespeare’s Danish court.
The Shakespeare Company’s namesake muse will be well represented next season in his own right, too. Three plays showcase the breadth of Shakespeare’s output, from romantic comedy to tragedy to mysteriously philosophical:
Take a love triangle, mistaken identities and comic supporting characters (would you expect deep thoughts from a man named Toby Belch?), all thrown together by a shipwreck in an exotic locale. Is it the latest prime-time reality show? No, it’s “Twelfth Night,” the turn-of-the-17th-century rom-com.
Presented in classic Elizabethan style, the production marks CSC’s first international collaboration, a partnership with Prague Shakespeare Company, the professional English-language theater of the Czech Republic. After its run in Over-the-Rhine from Nov. 14 through Dec. 7, the show will pack up and head to Prague.
The less said about the second play, the better, according to superstitious theater types. The “Scottish play” whose name is not be mentioned is, of course, “Macbeth,” the murderous political tragedy that proves seeking counsel from three women in the forest isn’t likely to end well. Especially if one’s wife hungers for power more than her husband.
Audiences can watch Great Birnam Wood move against the palace at Dunsinane from Feb. 28 through March 23, 2025.
That’s followed by the brave new world of “The Tempest,” which is one of Shakespeare’s last masterpieces, set on a mysterious island (after another shipwreck, coincidentally) where magic and reality blend in a tale of love, revenge and redemption. CSC’s production, which runs April 11 through May 4, 2025, will be a green one, engineered with a low environmental impact.
There’s a big helping of non-Shakespeare on tap for 2024-25, too, starting with another world premiere. The season-opening production of “Kindred Spirits” is the latest theater sequel by Alice Scovell. (Her “The Rewards of Being Frank,” an extrapolation of “The Importance of Being Earnest,” had its premiere at the Budig Theater in 2023 before heading to a successful Off-Broadway run.) This time, it’s the characters of Noel Coward’s “Blithe Spirit” that are brought back to enchant audiences with a blend of romance, jealousy and spectral hilarity.
The spirits rise again from Aug. 2-18.
For the Halloween season, CSC offers a new spin on an old monster. “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein,” by David Catlin, frames the journey of Victor Frankenstein’s creation by exploring themes of creation, rejection and the nature of humanity. It asks the audience who the real monster is – the creature or its creator.
This production is the company’s second collaboration with Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell, Massachusetts. See it Oct. 9 through Nov. 2.
Many theater companies have made a holiday tradition of staging Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” Befitting its more scrappy attitude, the Shakespeare Company’s tradition is a “Christmas Carol” gone off the rails in “Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some).” The irreverent (and saucy) audience favorite is back to spoof holiday favorites, particularly pop culture Christmas standards. After 19 years, you likely know the drill: Expect sold out houses for most performances. Runs Dec. 13-29.
The season ends with yet another (that makes three if you’re keeping score) world premiere and another CSC commission (that makes two in the season). It’s a new musical version of “Mrs. Dalloway,” the classic Virginia Woolf novel. The plot follows Clarissa Dalloway as she prepares an extravagant party in post-World War I London.
The adaptation – with book, music and lyrics by Augusta Mercer – is a queer-forward exploration of Woolf’s novel, examining the unspoken emotions and paths not taken in life. “My creative lens on ‘Mrs. Dalloway’ is deeply rooted in the relationships, in particular that of Clarissa and Sally, whose love is a fundamental theme that is frequently discounted,” Mercer said of the work. The neo-Golden Age score is influenced by contemporary folk-pop.
“Mrs. Dalloway” runs May 23 through June 15, 2025.
2024-25 season at glance
• Aug. 2-18: “Kindred Spirits” (world premiere)
• Sept. 6-22: “Fat Ham”
• Oct. 9-Nov. 2: “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein”
• Nov. 15 to Dec. 7: “Twelfth Night”
• Dec. 13-29: “Every Christmas Story Ever Told (And Then Some)”
• Jan. 24-Feb. 9: “A Room in the Castle” (world premiere)
• Feb. 28-March 23: “Macbeth”
• April 11-May 4: “The Tempest”
• May 23-June 15: “Mrs. Dalloway” (world premiere)
All performances are at the Otto M. Budig Theater, 1195 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202.
Tickets
Subscription packages of four, six or eight tickets are now available. They can be used for any combination of productions (excluding “Every Christmas Story”). Single tickets go on sale May 1.
cincyshakes.com or 513-381-2273, x1
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