THE TEMPEST • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

Back for its 26th season, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival returned to the Glen Friday night under a cloud-laden sky for what’s considered to be William Shakespeare’s last solo-written play. This production, directed by St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s previous artistic director, Rick Dildine, has been streamlined to 90 or so minutes with no intermission, and atypically begins with a celebratory prelude. Alonso, the King of Naples (Kathryn A. Bentley), toasts their daughter, newly wed to the King of Tunis, allowing us an early glimpse of the royal entourage before their ship is caught in a violent storm on their way back to Naples. Not far away, Prospero (Nancy Bell), a magician and the deposed Duke of Milan, has been living with her daughter Miranda (Sigrid Wise) on an enchanted island after being left to their own devices twelve years earlier. Prospero’s brother, Antonio (Jeff Cummings), wanted to supplant the popular Prospero as Duke, and conspired with Alonso to send her and her then infant daughter off on a boat headed for the Mediterranean. During her years of exile, Prospero has been honing her skills and plotting her revenge, enlisting a fairy spirit, Ariel (Eliza Pagelle), to assist in achieving her ends. Then there’s Caliban (Chauncy Thomas), the son of a long-dead witch who used to rule over the island. The island, by rights, should belong to him, but Prospero uses her magic to bind Caliban to a life of servitude. It’s Prospero and Ariel’s sorcery that raises the tempest, causing Alonso, Antonio and the rest of their party to be washed ashore and scattered on Prospero’s doorstep - right where she wants them.

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

What to do when you’re a pair of minor characters in Shakespeare’s Hamlet, waiting in the wings with no idea why you’re there? In Tom Stoppard’s exceptional Tony Award-winner (1966), Hamlet is seen from the lowly perspective of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two unexceptional courtiers situated along the fringes of the play. Here, they're placed front and center in the midst of a plot they don’t understand and adrift in an inevitable progression of events they can’t control. In association with Albion Theatre, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival kicks off its 2026 season with a striking production of Stoppard’s play that plumbs existential depths with an insight that is, remarkably, as comedic as it is profound.

The fate of our hapless duo is spoiled in the title, but the slow realization of their ultimate end is the thing, as snippets of Hamlet play out sporadically in the background. Ros and Guil’s confusion runs so deep that they’re not even sure of their own names, and a game of coin flipping that comes up “heads” repeatedly sets the tone for the play’s absurdist suspension of natural laws.

HAMLET • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

When Michael Khalid Karadsheh’s black-suited, grief-stricken Prince delivers his first soliloquy in St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s 25th Anniversary production of Hamlet, everyone else onstage freezes, and you just know things are likely to end badly for this young Danish royal, along with much of the cast for that matter. Whether it’s Robert Eggers’ The Northman or Disney’s The Lion King, the narrative backbone of these tales is similar; the protagonist is driven to vengeance after his father, the King, is murdered by his uncle, who usurps the throne and hastily marries the queen.

The storms that swept through St. Louis a couple of weeks ago caused considerable damage to the Festival's set and lights in Shakespeare Glen, but this excellent staging opened as scheduled thanks to the herculean efforts of the staff and volunteers who came together to repair and rebuild, with impressive results. Scott C. Neale’s distinctive T-shaped set is a bit of a marvel. Its upstage space is like an open, two-tiered hallway with painted murals against the walls, where cast members are poised at the top of the play - a striking tableau. Later, a modular center section draws your eye to a unique view of... well, a pivotal death. You’ll know it when you see it. And a patch of earth that lies at the foot of the thrust serves as a constant reminder of the sudden passing that sets everything into motion.

AS YOU LIKE IT • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

An hour-long rain delay wasn’t enough to daunt the opening night crowds at 

St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s charming production of As You Like It. All the hallmarks of a Shakespearean romantic comedy are there - sibling rivalries, gender-swapping disguises, unrequited love, the fools and the foolish. But director Nancy Bell’s take on the material is as refreshing as a spring breeze, and she’s got a cast that’s keen, with a knack for delivering the prose with clarity, making it more accessible and easier to follow along. Add to that an acoustic trio of musicians with original songs by a sweet-voiced Beth Bombara, a gilded age setting, and the always beguiling ambience of Shakespeare Glen, and you’ve got a show definitely worth checking out.

Forests tend to be transformative places in Shakespeare’s plays, and the Forest of Arden, unveiled after a simple but enchanting reveal, is no exception. There are lusty goatherds and lonely shepherds to spare in the woods, and it’s where many of the players retreat to after being exiled or to escape the perils of the city. The would-be lovers at the center are our heroine, Rosalind (Caroline Amos), lively and wise, and Orlando (Christian Thompson), stuck under the thumb of his older brother, Oliver (Greg Cuellar). Just as they start to fall for each other, Duke Frederick, Rosalind’s paranoid, usurping uncle, banishes her the same way he banished her mother, Duchess Senior (Michelle Hand), so Rosalind disguises herself as a boy and with her cousin and bestie, the Duke’s daughter, Celia (Jasmine Cheri Rush), along with the Duke’s fool, Touchstone (Ricki Franklin), they make their way to Arden. Meanwhile, Orlando learns that Oliver has some evil plans for him, so he, too, flees to the forest for his own safety.

TWELFTH NIGHT • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

The high times in Shakespeare’s romantic comedy are dialed up to eleven in St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s Latin-spiced production of Twelfth Night. A distinctly “Miami Beach” inspired setting steps in for the Kingdom of Illyria, and the Bard’s four hundred year-old laughs are given a fresh take via Spanish lines peppered throughout, traditional Latin songs and electronic beats.

Viola (Gabriela Saker) and her twin brother Sebastian (Avi Roque) are shipwrecked and tossed up onto foreign shores. Exiled and separated from her brother, Viola decides to disguise herself as a man, change her name to Cesario, and try to get a job with soccer star, Duke Orsino (Felipe Carrasco). This is when her entanglement in the love lives of the locals sets the plot in motion. Viola, now Cesario, is employed as a page for the lovesick Orsino, who longs for the wealthy and glamorous Olivia (Jasmine Cheri Rush), who, grieving for her brother, pines for no one. Cesario, who has fallen for Orsino, is sent to woo Olivia, who couldn’t care less about Orsino but takes an immediate shine to Cesario. It’s a hot mess.

OTHELLO • St. Louis Shakespeare Festival

Shakespeare, six actors, 24 parks and free admission? Oh, yeah. St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s brand new regional touring initiative, “TourCo”, is bringing a 90-minute adaptation of Othello to 24 public parks across the bi-state area. The stops include each of the past nine neighborhoods featured in its Shakespeare in the Streets program, as well as spots from Clayton and Hermann, Missouri to Belleville and Brussels, Illinois. You can check out the full list by scrolling down a bit here.

These TourCo productions aim to bring Shakespeare to audiences who may not otherwise have access to it, while decoding the language, providing hints to themes and what to look out for, and zeroing in on context -- emphasizing the timeless nature of the Bard’s plays. 

Speaking of timeless nature, what happens when a black man marries an upper-class white woman and rouses the green-eyed monster in a friend? In Othello, the answer is... well, nothing good really. Jason J. Little is dashing as Othello, a Moorish general in the Venetian army and newlywed to Desdemona (Courtney Bailey), the daughter of a local politician. She has eloped with Othello against her father’s wishes. When one of Othello’s lower-ranking soldiers, an ensign named Iago (Charlie Barron), is skipped over for a promotion he loses to Cassio (Jesse Muñoz), he vows to slander Cassio and crush Othello, with a plot to convince him that Desdemona has been unfaithful. Barron is perfectly villainous as Iago. Consumed by jealousy, he stalks back and forth, vaping and manipulating from the sidelines, sowing doubt in everyone Othello trusts, while hurling racial insults behind his back. Hannah Geisz is great as Roderigo, Iago’s willing stooge who helps move the duplicity along. Jesse Muñoz is persuasive as a framed and tarnished Cassio, and Ricki Franklin is Emilia, Iago’s outspoken wife, unwitting to his plans until it’s too late. Bailey, noticeably at ease with Shakespeare’s verse, is convincing as Desdemona, who finds herself completely unable to understand her husband’s sudden, harsh suspicions, and Little’s unraveling is palpable, as Othello goes from a confident military insider in a loving relationship, to an alienated “other”, eventually spiraling to murderous rage.