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Women Take Center Stage at Shakespeare & Company This Summer
By Stephen Dravis, iBerkshires Staff
05:36PM / Tuesday, February 17, 2015
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Past 'Othello' actor John Douglas Thompson portrays the first black actor to play the famous Moor on the English stage in Aldridge in 'Red Velvet.'
Above, Tina Packer, founder of Shakespeare & Company, returns this summer to a season shaped by women. Four of the seven productions are the work of contemporary women playwrights, including Jane Anderson, left, who wrote 'Mother of the Maid,' which will star Packer. It runs from July 30 to Sept. 6 in the Bernstein Theatre.
LENOX, Mass. — In April, Shakespeare & Company will hosts a book signing for the release of founder Tina Packer's new book, "Women of Will."
 
This summer, the venue's season could be titled "Women and Will."
 
There will be Shakespeare aplenty, of course, on the company's Kemble Road campus and down the road at The Mount.
 
But of seven main and second-stage productions, four will be the work of contemporary playwrights: Lolita Chakrabarti, Jane Anderson, Yasmina Reza and Sarah Treem.
 
"The four non-Shakespeare plays are all plays by women, and that was very important to me," new Executive Eirector Rick Dildine said on Monday. "Shakespeare & Company is one of the few theater companies in America that has been run by a woman. So that voice was very important to me."
 
Dildine, who took the reins at Shakespeare & Company in September, made his first season announcement on Monday afternoon at an event attended by supporters of the company.
 
This season includes original productions of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors" and "Henry V" at the Tina Packer Playhouse and Elayne P. Bernstein Theatre, respectively, and the 90-minute "Hamlet" that currently is touring school auditoriums throughout the Northeast. The latter will have a five-week run in the Dell at The Mount, Edith Wharton's home and the company's first home.
 
The season opens at the Bernstein over Memorial Day weekend with a production of "The How and the Why," by Treem, the writer and producer of the Netflix series "House of Cards" and a writer on Showtime's "The Affair."
 
In mid-July, the company offers "The Unexpected Man," the latest play by Reza, who won a Tony for "Art" in 1998.
 
The end of July will bring a world premiere production of Anderson's "Mother of the Maid." Anderson is an Emmy Award-winning writer of HBO's "Olive Kittredge" who has penned a comedy about Joan of Arc told through the eyes of the martyr's mom.
While Packer is bringing "Mother of the Maid" to life at the Bernstein, the Tina Packer Playhouse will host the regional premiere of Chakrabarti's "Red Velvet," an historical drama about Ira Aldridge, the first black actor to play Othello on the English stage.
 
John Douglas Thompson, who played Othello at Shakespeare & Company in 2008, will play Aldridge in "Red Velvet," which will be staged Aug. 6 to Sept. 13.
 
Above, Sarah Treem's 'The How and the Why' will kick off the season on May 22; right, Yasmina Reza's 'The Unexpected Man' will run from July 18 to Sept. 6.
In addition to the four women playwrights, four women directors will helm productions at Shakespeare & Company this summer: Nicole Ricciardi for "The How and the Why," Jenna Ware for "Henry V," Taibi Magar for "The Comedy of Errors" and Daniela Varon for "Red Velvet."
 
Although just three of this year's productions are Shakespearean plays, the company will honor the Bard with Shakespearean themes in "Red Velvet," a two-night engagement of Stephen Wolfert's "Cry Havoc," and a five-week run for the company's "Shakespeare and the Language that Shaped a World," on the Rose Footprint Theatre.
 
"This past season we had a lot of Shakespeare and a lot of Shakespeare-inspired shows, so I wanted to balance that a little bit with the three Shakespeares and the event on the Rose Footprint and 'Red Velvet' has a Shakespeare theme to it," Dildine said. "I felt like we were really, really well balanced."
 
While the former executive director of Shakespeare Festival St. Louis brings his own touches to his first season in Lenox — including "Unexpected Man" director Seth Gordon, the associate artistic director of the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis — Dildine also maintains a balance of Shakespeare & Company's tradition, like the return of Packer to the stage.
 
"She is the organization in so many ways," Dildine said. "Her passion is electric, and it's contagious. It's a real joy to see her continuing to just thrive in her work. It's a real joy to be a part of that."
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