ADV – Leaderboard

"The Three Musketeers" at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival.

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Announces 2015 Season

‘Arabian Nights’ and ‘An Iliad’ will join ‘Midsummer’ and ‘Winter’s Tale’ in the open-air tent in Garrison, N.Y. next summer.

COLD SPRING, N.Y.: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival has announced its 2015 summer season. In addition to the Bard, the company’s 29th writers will include Mary Zimmerman, Lisa Peterson and Denis O’Hare.

The productions will play in rotating repertory beginning June 9. The season opener will be Zimmerman’s adaptation of Arabian Nights, directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz (currently directing Branden Jacobs-Jenkins‘ newest play War at Yale Repertory Theatre). The season will continue with Shakespeare’s Winter’s Tale (directed by HVSF artistic director Davis McCallum) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (directed by Eric Tucker).

The final show in the season will be An Iliad, Peterson and O’Hare’s adaptation of Homer’s epic for one actor, running for five performances. It will be directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch and will feature longtime HVSF actor Kurt Rhoads. All productions will run to the end of August.

In addition to repertory production, there will be a performance of The Tempest on Aug. 17, directed by NYU acting teacher Jim Calder and performed by HVSF’s Conservatory Company, the theatre’s training program for early-career actors. Tempest will tour throughout the Hudson Valley.

Of the season selections, McCallum said in a release: “Our 2015 season is a celebration of the power of storytelling. Next to eating, and sleeping, and love, one of our deepest human needs is for stories. In fact, the idea of tales told and of ears bent by the power of a tale occurs again and again throughout Shakespeare. That magical connection between the storyteller and the listener is at the center of all our work at HVSF.”

HVSF is the resident Shakespeare company in the Hudson Valley region. It stages all of its performances in an open-air tent located on the grounds of the historic Boscobel House and Gardens in Garrison, N.Y., about four miles down the Hudson River from HVSF’s offices in Cold Spring.

Support American Theatre: a just and thriving theatre ecology begins with information for all. Please join us in this mission by making a donation to our publisher, Theatre Communications Group. When you support American Theatre magazine and TCG, you support a long legacy of quality nonprofit arts journalism. Click here to make your fully tax-deductible donation today!

ADV – Billboard