Hamlet

October 16 – November 16

By William Shakespeare

Directed by Darko Tresnjak

Following his critically-acclaimed productions of The Tempest, Twelfth Night and Macbeth, Darko Tresnjak takes on Shakespeare’s masterpiece, Hamlet. A Danish prince returns home to find his father killed, and his mother marrying the murderer. When his father’s ghost rises to demand retribution, Hamlet is put in an impossible situation. In this opulent, Elizabethan staging, Hamlet’s tragic tale of revenge gets the full-on, terrifying — and bloody — treatment.

Darko’s Comments…

Shakespeare’s most famous play is both a bold theatrical thriller and a literary masterpiece. It has captured the imagination of the world, on the page and on the stage, for over four centuries.

But, strangely enough, there is no such thing as Hamlet. There are only Hamlets – three distinctly different versions of the text that survive in the First and the Second Quarto and the First Folio. And scholars have debated for centuries which version reflects Shakespeare’s final and true intent.

Our opulent production, set in the Elizabethan Era, is inspired by James Shapiro’s extraordinary book 1599: A Year in the Life of Shakespeare. It explores the political and the personal events that preceded the creation of the play in 1599. I encourage you to read this informative and entertaining book.