All theatre companies have tricks in their pockets and things up their sleeves. But Annapolis Shakespeare Company is the opposite of a stage magician. A stage magician gives you the illusion that has the appearance of truth and ASC’s latest production of The Glass Menagerie as directed by Donald Hicken gives you truth in the pleasant disguise of illusion. There is a hard truth to Hicken’s approach to this play in memory,
A second marriage to a new wife is perfectly acceptable and almost expected when your first wife dies young. It might even go along swimmingly, even if from time to time your late first wife surfaces in conversation. But things tend to go grievously awry when said dearly departed surfaces in her ghostly fatigues right in the center of your drawing room. In the zany high-brow comedy of wit and repartee, Noël Coward’s Blithe Spirit is conjured to the main stage of Annapolis Shakespeare Company to kick-start the back end of their 2017/2018 season.
It is the time of year for joy, love, and holiday traditions. One tradition that many people hold dear is a yearly outing to see A Christmas Carol, they pick from numerous theatres all playing the famous production and get their yearly fix of the British miser who changes his ways. It has been a long time since a new adaptation of the famous tale has come around, however at a small theatre in Annapolis that is exactly what has happened.
Annapolis Shakespeare Company opens its main stage with a lavish, lush, magnificent Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare’s most genuinely romantic rom-com. Director Sally Boyett has given it a 50’s spin, with a rock-and-roll soundtrack and a spectacular Tuscan villa (by way of California), with a two-story stucco house and terra-cotta dance floor (by scenic designer Jack Golden).
Helena Farhi and Benjamin Russell play Shakespeare’s greatest lovers, Beatrice and Benedick.
Annapolis Shakespeare Company inaugurates its new space with a stunning, lavish play, an adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, which shows off the amazing capabilities of their new venue. Written by Sally Boyett (who also directed it) and Donald Hicken, it mixes Carroll’s novel with a frame story about the book Alice in Wonderland itself, given to Alice by Charles Dodgeson (Carroll’s real name) himself. It intersperses this bit of meta-textuality with a few modern references to,
Directors Donald Hicken and Sally Boyett have created a sparkling Tempest under the stars at the Charles Carroll house in Annapolis. With a spreading tree dominating the scene and a shrub hedge covering the back stage, the hill slopes toward the river for Shakespeare’s watery play. Bring a blanket or a lawn chair… and some bug spray and you’re ready for Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s The Tempest this July.
The early evening and the river bring a hint of cool weather to summer in Annapolis,
It has been 365 days— give or take a day here or there— since last the Courtyard of Reynolds Tavern was opened for their summer seasonal “Comedy in the Courtyard” series. And in those 525,600 minutes— give or take some minutes— William Shakespeare has written exactly zero news plays, absolutely no new sonnets, and penned no new roles of any sort! There are still 1,122 roles, 37 plays, and 154 sonnets to get through and there are still only three dudes to get through it!
“The catastrophe of power in the wrong hands.” An apt tag line for the Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s current production of Richard III as it speaks plainly to the Bard’s bloody history-borderline tragedy play and more broadly to situations at hand all around us right up to the currently political regime in the nation’s capital. Directed by Donald Hicken, this sharply rendered and quick-paced rendition of what is arguably the most violent of the history plays in Shakespeare’s canon,
Everybody has a right to their own troubles; some people ain’t made for small town life. The quintessential all-American play about the daily doings of small town life, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town, marks the inaugural production of Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s new home at 1804 West Street. Directed by Sally Boyett, this theatrical chestnut settles into the turn of the 20th century in Grover’s Corners, New Hampshire with a whole mess of Gibbs’ and Webb’s and other small town folk whose stories are important to no one but themselves.
It’s that time of year when the world falls in love, every song you hear seems to say, Merry Christmas! And no one’s singing or saying it brighter than the good folks over at WBFR: Playhouse of the Air as they prepare for their annual holiday broadcast, this year featuring It’s a Wonderful Life. Fully settled into the hokey yet happy holiday gimmick that is It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play,
I say there is no darkness but ignorance, and to remain ignorant of the truly sensational production of Twelfth Night that is gracing itself upon the stage of the Annapolis Shakespeare Company’s studio stage would be to remain steeped in the depths of an aphotic gloom of indescribable proportions. Directed by the company’s Artistic Director— Sally Boyett— this reimagined, innovative approach pays homage to the glistening golden era of Hollywood’s silver screen,
He stands amid the roar of a surf-tormented shore, and all that he sees and seems is but a dream within a dream. Appropriate as the autumnal offering and 2016-2017 season starter at Annapolis Shakespeare Company as they roost in residence at Reynolds Tavern just off the city dock shore on Church Circle for the world premiere of Tony Tsendeas’ POE…and All the Others. Directed by Sally Boyett, this newly imagined take on Baltimore’s master of the macabre is an absurd burlesque of memory,