Mark your calendars! The dates and locations of this year's Bard Fest have been announced. The annual festival brings together multiple theatre companies and this year, multiple locations, to present Shakespeare's work.
The Shakespeare festival is returning to the IndyFringe Basile Theatre and expanding to The Cat Theatre in Carmel and The Theatre at the Fort in Lawrence. It will include all new original productions of Measure for Measure, Antony and Cleopatra, Love’s Labour’s Lost, and Macbeth. It will also feature two additional productions of Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? and the award-winning Elizabeth Rex by Timothy Findley. The shows, produced by Bard Fest, will continue to bring the region’s finest actors to Indianapolis and provide unique visions of the Bard of Avon along with modern classical contemporaries.
Bard Fest was first conceived by Glenn Dobbs in the spring of 2015. Launching with an admittedly “overly ambitious” schedule of eight productions by three different production companies, the festival was “wildly successful.” Dobbs is now the executive producer and artistic director of Bard Fest. John Clair and Nan Macy, Jonathen Scoble, and Kevin Robertson are associate producers.
Their new venture, The Prestige Project, is the first foray into the world of modern classical theater. They are tackling Albee’s masterpiece Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolfe? Directed by Mr Matthew Socey, a local radio anchor at WFYI, we present 4 of the most talented actors in the city to tell this searing story.
Bard Fest also includes four Shakespeare tales. The rarely-produced drama, Measure for Measure, tells the story of a woman wrongly persecuted and is directed by Paige Scott. In another theater we present in rotation the political romance of Antony and Cleopatra, directed by Ryan Shelton, and the comic farce Love’s Labor’s Lost, directed by John Johnson. At another venue we will present the horror drama Macbeth, directed by Kathy Phipps.
The final production will be at a new venue, The Theater at the Fort in Lawrence with the award-winning Elizabeth Rex by Timothy Findley. It asks the question, What would you do if Queen Elizabeth I showed up at your house and demanded to be entertained? The show will be directed by Dobbs.
The complete schedule of shows can be found at indybardfest.com. The Festival will run from October 7th to November 14th. Tickets can be purchased at Indybardfest.com
Image courtesy of Bard Fest
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