Shakespeare Theatre Company has announced a sneak peek at casting for the 2025/26 season with several Broadway talents and local favorites leading the list in its first three shows: Merry Wives, The Wild Duck, and Guys and Dolls.
Starting off the season in Jocelyn Bioh’s adaptation of Merry Wives, directed by Taylor Reynolds, will be Felicia Curry and Oneika Phillips as the merry wives themselves, Madame Ford and Madame Page, respectively. Curry is an award-winning local favorite familiar to DC audiences, who previously appeared in STC’s production of Our Town, as well as the recent Broadway revival and National Tour of Into the Woods. Phillips’s Broadway credits include FELA!, SpongeBob SquarePants, and the recent 2022 revival and National Tour of 1776, which featured an all-female, non-binary, and transgender cast.
Two recent actors from the current season will return to STC in Artistic Director Simon Godwin’s production of The Wild Duck. Nick Westrate, most recently of Frankenstein, takes on the role of Hjalmar Ekdal, an idealistic but disillusioned photographer forced to confront the lies in his family, to tragic results. Melanie Field, who appeared to high acclaim as the lovelorn Sonya in Uncle Vanya, will play Gina Ekdal, Hjalmar’s wife and partner, caught up in the betrayals. The production is co-produced with Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) and will begin its run there before arriving at STC’s Klein Theatre.
A lineup of Broadway and musical theater talent fronts the holiday slot production of Guys and Dolls, directed by Washington National Opera Artistic Director Francesca Zambello, with choreography by two-time Tony Award-nominee Joshua Bergasse (Smash, Broadway’s Bull Durham).
In the role of the mannered and conservative Sarah Brown is Julie Benko, most recently from an acclaimed run in the Broadway production of Funny Girl (named New York Times 2022 Breakout Star in Theatre), and Barry Manilow’s Harmony. Jacob Dickey (Old Friends with Bernadette Peters, Aladdin, Company) will play opposite her as the suave gambler Sky Masterson. Playing the noncommittal Nathan Detroit will be Rob Colletti (Almost Famous, original Dewey Finn in the School of Rock National Tours); and as his on-again, off-again girlfriend Adelaide is Hayley Podschun, whose Broadway credits include Wicked (Glinda, National Tour); Hello, Dolly!; Something Rotten!; and more. She was last seen in DC in a Helen Hayes-nominated turn in Catch Me If You Can at Arena Stage.
In addition to these first three shows, the season also includes Tony Award-winning actor and master clown Bill Irwin (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Eureka Day, Sesame Street) in his funny and insightful one-man show On Beckett in the new year. It will be followed by the Royal Shakespeare Company and Neal Street Productions staging of Hamnet, adapted from the beloved best-selling novel by Maggie O’Farrell by award-winning playwright Lolita Chakrabarti (Life of Pi, Red Velvet) and directed by Erica Whyman. Closing the season, Godwin returns to the director’s seat with Othello with the Olivier and Tony Award-nominee Wendell Pierce (Death of a Salesman, Elsbeth, The Wire, and the newly released Superman).
Full season subscriptions and play packages are currently on sale. Single tickets for individual productions will go on sale to the public later this month. More information can be found at ShakespeareTheatre.org.
SEASON ARTISTS
JULIE BENKO
Actor, Guys and Dolls
Julie Benko joined the annals of theatrical legend for her sensational understudy-to-star trajectory as Fanny Brice in the Broadway revival of Funny Girl, for which she received Theatre World’s Dorothy Loudon Award and was named the 2022 Breakout Star for Theater by The New York Times and one of 10 Broadway Stars to Watch by Variety, among other accolades. She created the role of Ruth in the Broadway production of Barry Manilow’s Harmony, and has also been seen on Broadway and in national tours of Fiddler on the Roof, Les Misérables, and Spring Awakening. She has starred in numerous off-Broadway and regional productions, including My Fair Lady, Jane Eyre, Once, The Fantasticks, Our Town, Rags, and more. She will make her screen acting debut in the upcoming feature film Caravan. Benko has released 3 albums with her pianist-composer spouse, Jason Yeager, which are available wherever music is streaming.
JOSHUA BERGASSE
Choreographer, Guys and Dolls
Josh won an Emmy Award for choreographing the NBC series Smash, which is coming to Broadway this spring. Other Broadway: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory; On the Town (TONY, Drama Desk, OCC noms; Astaire Award); and Gigi. Off-B’way: Sweet Charity (Chita Rivera Award, Lortel nom); Cagney (Drama Desk, OCC, Astaire Noms; Callaway Finalist); Bomb-itty of Errors; and Captain Louie. He also directed and choreographed the re-imagined Smokey Joes Cafe at Stage 42. Josh has done nearly a dozen productions of West Side Story (recreating the original Jerome Robbins choreography). Encores!: I married an Angel; Little Me; …It’s Superman!; Annie Get Your Gun; and The Golden Apple. For Television: Multiple Episodes of So You Think You Can Dance; A Capitol Fourth; Jessica Jones; Sinatra – A Voice for a Century; Hawkeye; Kennedy Center 50-year celebration; Monsterland. Film: Your Monster.
JOCELYN BIOH
Adaptation, Merry Wives
NEW YORK: Broadway: Jaja’s African Hair Braiding (5 TONY Award nominations including Best Play); Off-Broadway: Public Theater/Shakespeare in the Park: Merry Wives; MCC Theater: Nollywood Dreams, School Girls: Or, The African Mean Girls Play. INTERNATIONAL: Lyric Hammersmith (London): School Girls: Or, The African Mean Girls Play. TV: Russian Doll, She’s Gotta Have It (Netflix), Tiny Beautiful Things (Hulu), The Acolyte (Disney+). AWARDS: Horton Foote Prize (2024), The Steinberg Playwright Award (2020), The Dramatist Guild Hull-Warriner Award (2018 and 2024), Lortel Award (2018), Drama Desk Award (2022), and was a 2017 Tow Playwriting Fellow. Jocelyn is also writing the live screen adaptation of the hit Broadway musical Once on This Island for Disney.
LOLITA CHAKRABARTI
Adaptation, Hamnet
Lolita Chakrabarti OBE is an actress and award-winning playwright. She trained at RADA. Writing credits include her adaptation of the Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi, which won 5 Olivier Awards, including Best Play, and went to Broadway in March 2023, winning 3 Tony Awards. Hamnet opened for a sold-out run at the RSC, before transferring to London’s West End. Her original play Hymn opened at the Almeida Theatre in 2021 and will have its US Premiere at Chicago Shakespeare Theatre in Spring 2025. Her debut play Red Velvet opened at the Tricycle Theatre, London, before transferring to St Ann’s Warehouse in New York and to London’s West End. It earned her the Evening Standard Charles Wintour Award for Most Promising Playwright 2012; The Critics’ Circle Award for Most Promising Playwright 2013; AWA for Arts and Culture 2013 and an Olivier Award nomination 2012. Lolita adapted Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities for Manchester International Festival and Brisbane Festival, in collaboration with Rambert, Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and 59 Productions. Lolita curated The Greatest Wealth (Old Vic), commissioning eight new monologues to celebrate the NHS. She also dramaturged Sylvia (Old Vic) and Message in a Bottle (Peacock Theatre/US tour) for Kate Prince. Her extensive acting credits include Summer 1954 (Theater Royal Bath and UK tour), The Hunt (Almeida at St Ann’s Warehouse), Gertrude, opposite Tom Hiddleston, in Sir Kenneth Branagh’s Hamlet (RADA), Last Seen – Joy (Almeida Theatre), which she also wrote, Silo (Apple TV), Screw (CH4), Vigil, Showtrial, A Casual Vacancy (BBC), Wheel of Time (Amazon), Criminal (Netflix), Delicious (Sky), Forty Something, and The Bill (ITV).
ROB COLLETTI
Actor, Guys and Dolls
STC Debut. BROADWAY/TOURS: Rob starred as the infamous “Lester Bangs” in Academy Award Winner Cameron Crowe’s Broadway adaptation of Almost Famous, “Elder Cunningham” in all three North American productions of The Book of Mormon (Broadway, National Tour, Chicago), and “Dewey Finn” in the First National Broadway Tour of School of Rock (BWW/LA Scenie Award Noms). REGIONAL: The Muny, The Old Globe, The Second City, ATC, and many more. FILM/TV: The Many Saints of Newark (Warner Bros.), Just Roll With It (ABC/Disney), WTF: World Thumbwrestling Federation (TCW). UPCOMING: In 2026, Rob joins the cast of the hit series One Piece on Netflix, then he’ll team up with Cameron Crowe again for the Untitled Joni Mitchell Biopic. AWARDS: In addition to his accolades for School of Rock, Rob is a Kennedy Center Irene Ryan Award Nominee. TRAINING: Harvard University, Columbia College Chicago, The Second City.
FELICIA CURRY
Actor, Merry Wives
STC: Will on the Hill, Our Town. New York: Broadway: Into the Woods. Off-Broadway: Bowl EP, Fabulation, Queens Girl in the World, We Three Lizas, DMLRR: The Brontes, Petite Rouge. TOURS: Into the Woods, KC: Roald Dahl’s Willy Wonka, Mattel/Live Nation: Barbie Live!, Capitol Steps. REGIONAL: TheatreWorks Hartford, Berkshire Theatre Group, VA Repertory Theatre, Gulfshore Playhouse, Signature Theatre, Ford’s Theatre, Arena Stage, Factory 449, The Kennedy Center, Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Round House Theatre, Studio Theatre, Rep Stage, MetroStage. AWARDS: CT Critics Circle Award (Sandra), Berkshire Theatre Award (Nina Simone: Four Women), RTCC Award (The Color Purple), Helen Hayes Award (Lela & Co.), Anderson Hopkins Award, 2 AUDELCO Award Nominations (Fabulation and Queens Girl in the World). OTHER: Company Member: Factory 449, Everyman Theatre; Ford’s Theatre Artistic Associate; Host of WETA Arts (Emmy Award Nomination). PERSONAL: she/her/hers. Training: UMD – College Park.
JACOB DICKEY
Actor, Guys and Dolls
Jacob Dickey was last seen on Broadway opposite Bernadette Peters in Stephen Sondheim’s Old Friends. Some of his favorite theatre credits include Company (Broadway and 1st nat’l tour), Aladdin (Broadway and 1st nat’l tour), Emojiland (Off-Broadway original cast), The Prince of Egypt (Tuacahn Amphitheatre), and …The Great Comet of 1812 (PCLO). You can see him on TV in Partner Track, Gossip Girl, The Other Two, The First Lady, and Blue Bloods. He counts himself amongst the luckiest to be back in his home state making his DC theatre debut with STC. He sends love and gratitude to CGF, his friends and family, but especially, to Sean.
DAVID ELDRIDGE
Adaptation, The Wild Duck
NEW YORK: Broadway: Festen (Music Box Theatre). INTERNATIONAL: Beginning, Middle, End, Market Boy (National Theatre); Holy Warriors (Shakespeare’s Globe); In Basildon, Incomplete and Random Acts of Kindness (Royal Court); Under the Blue Sky (Royal Court & Duke of York’s Theatre, West End); The Stock Da’wa, Falling (Hampstead Theatre); The Knot of the Heart (Almeida Theatre); Summer Begins (Donmar Warehouse). ADAPTATIONS: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Chichester Festival Theatre); Miss Julie, The Lady from the Sea (Royal Exchange, Manchester); John Gabriel Borkman, The Wild Duck (Donmar Warehouse); Festen (Almeida, Lyric Theatre West End). TV: The Scandalous Lady W (BBC2), Our Hidden Lives and Killers (BBC4). AWARDS: Time Out Live Award for Best New Play in West End; Theatregoers Choice Award for Best New Play; Prix Europa for Best European Radio Drama; Off West End Theatre Award for Best New Play.
MELANIE FIELD
Actor, The Wild Duck
STC: Uncle Vanya. NEW YORK: Broadway: The Phantom of the Opera, Evita. REGIONAL: Berkeley Rep: Uncle Vanya. TOURS: Wicked. TV: A League of Their Own (Amazon), American Horror Stories (Hulu), Heathers (Paramount Network), Florida Girls (POP TV), The Angel of Darkness (TNT), Shrill (Hulu), You (Netflix), Killing It (Peacock). PERSONAL: Training: NYU; Yale School of Drama.
SIMON GODWIN
Director, The Wild Duck, Othello
Artistic Director, Shakespeare Theatre Company
STC: Uncle Vanya, All the Devils are Here: How Shakespeare Created the Villian, Comedy of Errors, Macbeth, King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, Timon of Athens; Simon Godwin joined Shakespeare Theatre Company as Artistic Director in September 2019. He has served as Associate Director of National Theatre of London, Royal Court Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, and Royal & Derngate Theatre. INTERNATIONAL: UK: His work at the National Theatre includes Man and Superman (ft. Ralph Fiennes and Indira Varma), Antony and Cleopatra (ft. Ralph Fiennes and Sophie Okonedo), Romeo & Juliet (ft. Josh O’Connor and Jessie Buckley and filmed for Sky Arts/PBS) | Work at Royal Shakespeare Company includes Hamlet, Timon of Athens (ft. Kathryn Hunter and reimagined in 2020 for Theatre for a New Audience and STC). AWARDS: Evening Standard/Burberry Award for an Emerging Director (2012).
BILL IRWIN
Creator, Director, Performer, On Beckett
Bill Irwin is a Tony Award-winning actor, director, writer, and clown. Original works include The Regard of Flight; Largely New York (Four Tony Nominations); Fool Moon; Old Hats, The Happiness Lecture; and others. He has played in many Broadway, Off-Broadway, and regional stage productions, including, ON BECKETT, The Iceman Cometh, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Tony Award for Best Actor in a Play), The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?; Waiting For Godot (2009 for a Drama Desk Award nomination); Endgame; The Tempest; Texts for Nothing; Garden of Earthly Delights; Accidental Death of An Anarchist; Showboat – and the Tony Award winning Fool Moon, which he created with David Shiner and Nancy Harrington. On television, Irwin appears as Mr. Noodle of Elmo’s World and Carey Loudermilk of LEGION. The Regard of Flight (PBS) he created with Doug Skinner, Michael O’Connor, and Nancy Harrington. Film credits include Rachel Getting Married, The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, Eight Men Out, Interstellar, Stepping Out, Unsilent Picture, and more. Irwin was an original member of Kraken, a theatre company directed by Herbert Blau, and was also an original member of the Pickle Family Circus of San Francisco with Larry Pisoni and Geoff Hoyle. Irwin is the grateful recipient of MacArthur, Guggenheim, Fulbright, and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships.
MAGGIE O’FARRELL
Author, Hamnet, novel
is an author and screenwriter. Maggie has co-written the screenplay adaptation of her novel Hamnet (with Oscar-winning director Chloe Zhao) for Hera/Neal St/Amblin Entertainment, Focus, which filmed in July 2024 starring Jessie Buckley and Paul Mescal, directed by Chloe Zhao. Hamnet was the winner of the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction. Maggie’s novels include The Marriage Portrait under option to Element Pictures, The Hand That First Held Mine, which won the 2010 Costa Novel Award and is under option to Estuary Films, and This Must be the Place, shortlisted for the 2016 Costa Novel Award and will be produced as a TV series for Amazon, starring Orlando Bloom. The Distance Between Us won a Somerset Maugham Award; The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox was shortlisted for the 2013 Costa Novel Award, and Instructions for a Heatwave was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award. Her memoir I am, I am, I am became a Sunday Times no 1 bestseller. Maggie’s titles have sold over 4 million copies in the UK and Ireland and over 7 million worldwide, and have been translated into 42 languages. Maggie is represented for books by Victoria Hobbs at A.M. Heath.
ONEIKA PHILLIPS
Actor, Merry Wives
STC: Debut. NEW YORK: Broadway: 1776; FELA! The Musical (Best Musical Tony Nominated); SpongeBob SquarePants The Musical (Best Musical Tony Nominated); Amazing Grace; Violet (Asst. to Choreographer/Best Revival Tony Nominated). Off-Broadway: Signature Theatre: Black No More; Perelman Arts Center NYC: Watch Night. Shakespeare: Folger Shakespeare Theatre/Cincinnati Shakespeare Company: Lauren Gunderson’s A Room in the Castle. Regional: NYSAF/Powerhouse Theatre: In Your Arms. National Tours: 1776, FELA!. International Tours: FELA!, West Side Story. Awards: Astaire Awards, Outstanding Female Dancer in a Broadway Show. Television: The Tony Awards, Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, SpongeBob SquarePants The Musical, Good Morning America. Companies: Forces of Nature Dance Theatre. PERSONAL: First Grenadian woman on Broadway
WENDELL PIERCE
Actor, Othello
Wendell Pierce is a prolific award-winning actor with a body of work on stage, television and film that spans more than three decades. He currently portrays Captain C.W. Wagner in the second season of the critically acclaimed CBS drama Elsbeth, for which he received an AAFCA TV Honor and a Critics Choice Celebration of Black Cinema and Television Actor Award. He is also a recurring character, Ishmael “Snaps” Henry, on Starz’s Power Universe’s Raising Kanan. Universally hailed for his portrayal of Det. Bunk Moreland on HBO’s groundbreaking series The Wire, Pierce was also praised for his starring role as Antoine Baptiste on David Simon’s critically acclaimed series Tremé and as James Greer in the Amazon Originals Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan alongside John Krasinski. This summer, he joins both the Marvel Universe in the feature film Thunderbolts and the DC Comics Universe in James Gunn’s Superman. Pierce returned to Broadway in 2022 for a limited engagement to reprise his portrayal of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, for which he received a Tony Award nomination for Lead Actor in a Play.
HAYLEY PODSCHUN
Actor, Guys and Dolls
STC Debut! BROADWAY: Wicked (Glinda, National Tour), Hello, Dolly!, Something Rotten, Anything Goes, Chaplin, Pal Joey, Sunday in the Park With George, Hairspray, The Sound of Music. OFF-BROADWAY/NYC: I Can Get It For You Wholesale (Miss Springer & others, CSC), Vanities (Joanne, The York), I Married an Angel (Anna, NYCC Encores) Freckleface Strawberry (Freckleface-Original Cast), Cheek to Cheek (The York). REGIONAL FAVORITES: Catch Me If You Can (Brenda, Arena Stage, Helen Hayes Nominated), You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown (Sally, Sharon Playhouse), The Sound of Music (Maria, The Lexington Theatre Company), Kinky Boots (Lauren, Sacramento Music Circus), Holiday Inn (Linda/Paper Mill Playhouse & Lila/Goodspeed Opera House), Gypsy (Dainty June, The Muny), Peter Pan (Peter), & more. FILM/TV: Fleishman is in Trouble (HULU/FX), Hairspray (Tammy, New Line Cinema), The Blacklist (NBC), Louie (FX), Guest Host on QVC.
TAYLOR REYNOLDS
Director, Merry Wives
Taylor Reynolds is an OBIE-award winning director based in New York, originally from Chicago. Her work centers around joyful collaboration and new play development. Selected directing credits: Primary Trust (Signature Theatre), The Sensational Sea Mink-ettes (Woolly Mammoth), Fat Ham (Studio Theatre, Helen Hayes nomination for Best Director), This Land Was Made (Vineyard Theatre), Clyde’s (Berkeley Rep/Huntington Theatre), La Race (Page 73/Working Theater), Tambo & Bones (Playwrights Horizons/CTG), Man Cave (Page 73), The Most Spectacularly Lamentable Trial of Miz Martha Washington (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, New York Times Critic’s Pick), Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally (Baltimore Center Stage/Playwrights Realm),and Plano (Clubbed Thumb, Drama Desk nomination for Best Director). Taylor has also worked as a director and collaborator with companies including The Movement Theatre Company, Keen Company, Ojai Playwrights Conference, MCC, EST, New Georges, and The 24 Hour Plays. She is a New Georges Affiliated Artist, 2021 LPTW Lucille Lortel Award recipient, 2017-2018 Clubbed Thumb Directing Fellow, and Lincoln Center Theater Directors Lab alum. BFA, Carnegie Mellon University. Member of SDC.
NICK WESTRATE
Actor, The Wild Duck
STC: Frankenstein. NEW YORK: Broadway: Bernhardt/Hamlet, Casa Valentina, A Moon for the Misbegotten. Off-Broadway: has won and been nominated for Drama Desk Awards for work at Barrow Street Theater, The Public Theater, Transport Group and Classic Stage Company for directors like Ivo van Hove, Daniel Fish, and David Cromer. OTHER D.C.: Prior Walter in Angels in America (Arena) for Jánosz Száz (Helen Hayes Award Best Ensemble, Nom. Best Actor), The King’s Speech (National). FILM: American Insurrection, Jonathan Demme’s Ricki and the Flash opposite Meryl Streep. TV: Robert Townsend on Turn: Washington’s Spies (AMC), Todd Haynes’ Mildred Pierce (HBO), Bruno Barreto’s The American Guest (HBO), and Edwin Booth on Manhunt (Apple TV+). OTHER: He’s an NYTW Usual Suspect, a graduate of Juilliard, and the co-founder, director, and designer of The Streetcar Project which tours Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire to theaters and found spaces—coming to A.C.T. in San Francisco in January 2026.
ERICA WHYMAN
Director, Hamnet
Erica Whyman is an experienced theatre director and artistic leader. Most recently she directed Ben and Imo by Mark Ravenhill for the RSC’s Swan theatre which she will revive in 2025 at the Orange Tree, London, and Hamnet by Lolita Chakrabarti from the novel by Maggie O’Farrell for the RSC and the West End. She has had a long career leading theatres – Southwark Playhouse, the Gate Theatre, London, and Northern Stage, Newcastle where she was awarded the OBE for services to British Theatre. From there she became Deputy and later Acting Artistic Director of the RSC. She was Chair of Theatre503 for a decade and is now Chair of Improbable. She has always championed theatre makers whose voices have been ignored. Notable productions include Revolt she said, revolt again, by Alice Birch, The Museum in Baghdad by Hannah Khalil, Seven Acts of Mercy by Anders Lustgarten, Miss Littlewood by Sam Kenyon (all RSC) and Our Friends In The North by Peter Flannery (Northern Stage). She is currently a Visiting Fellow at Oxford University, considering the role of culture in our democracy.
FRANCESCA ZAMBELLO
Director, Guys and Dolls
Francesca Zambello is the General Director, Emerita of the Glimmerglass Festival and the Artistic Director of the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center. She is also an internationally recognized director of opera and theater, Zambello’s work has been seen at major opera houses, festivals and theaters around the globe. She has been awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government, the Knighthood of the Order of the Star of Italy for her contribution to Italian culture and the Russian Federation’s medal for Service to Culture. She was also given the San Francisco Opera Medal for Artistic Excellence for more than 30 years of artistic contributions to the company. Her theatrical honors include three Olivier Awards, two Evening Standard Awards, two French Grand Prix des Critiques, Helpmann Award, Green Room Award, and Russia’s Golden Mask.
ABOUT SHAKESPEARE THEATRE COMPANY
For nearly 40 years, the Tony Award-winning Shakespeare Theatre Company has been recognized as the nation’s premier classical theater. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Simon Godwin and Executive Director Angela Lee Gieras, STC tells vital stories in audacious forms, stories that are Shakespearean in the deepest sense, even if they are not written by Shakespeare. They stage epic stories in exhilarating style.
ABOUT NEAL STREET PRODUCTIONS
Neal Street Productions is one of the UK’s most respected production companies, producing film, television and theater. Founded 2003 by Sam Mendes, Pippa Harris, and Caro Newling, it makes distinctive, popular award-winning projects on both sides of the Atlantic. The theater slate is overseen by Newling together with producer Georgia Gati. TV includes Call the Midwife, The Franchise, Britannia, Penny Dreadful, and The Hollow Crown. Films include Mendes’ Empire of Light, 1917, and Revolutionary Road. Upcoming: The Magic Faraway Tree, Hamnet, and currently in development: The Beatles project for Sony Pictures – four distinct theatrical feature films about the greatest band in history, conceived and directed by Sam Mendes. Theater originated by Neal Street includes The Lehman Trilogy, The Motive and the Cue, The Hills of California, Hamnet, Local Hero, The Ferryman, Shrek the Musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Bridge Project 2010 – 2012, Three Days of Rain, The Vertical Hour. West End transfers also include Walking with Ghosts, The Moderate Soprano, This House, The Painkiller, Merrily We Roll Along, South Downs/The Browning Version, Red, Enron, Sunday in the Park with George, Mary Stuart.
ABOUT THE ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
The Royal Shakespeare Company’s mission is to bring people together to experience stories that deepen our understanding of ourselves, each other and the world around us, and that bring joy. Shakespeare’s restless exploration of all of human nature is the RSC’s inspiration and touchstone. The Company’s roots lie in the bold vision of a local brewer, Edward Fordham Flower, who in 1879 established a theater in Stratford-upon-Avon with his son Charles. The RSC as we know it today was formed by Sir Peter Hall, whose ambition was to produce new plays alongside those of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. They continue this today across three permanent theaters in Stratford – the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, the Swan Theatre and The Other Place – and online and around the globe. The Company believes everybody’s life can be enriched by culture and creativity. Their transformative Creative Learning and Engagement programs reach over half a million young people and adults each year. The RSC has collaborated with generations of the very best theater makers and continues to nurture the talent of the future.
ABOUT THEATRE FOR A NEW AUDIENCE (TFANA)
Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, and led by Horowitz and Managing Director Dorothy Ryan, Theatre for a New Audience (TFANA) is a New York home for Shakespeare and other contemporary playwrights. It nurtures artists, culture, and community.
With Shakespeare as its guide, TFANA explores the ever-changing forms of world theater. TFANA has produced thirty-five of Shakespeare’s thirty-eight play canon and builds a dialogue spanning centuries between the language and ideas of Shakespeare and diverse authors, past and present. TFANA is committed to building long-term associations with artists from around the world and supporting the development of plays, translations, and productions through residences, workshops, and commissions through the Merle Debuskey Studio Program. TFANA performs for an audience of all ages and backgrounds; and promotes a vibrant exchange of ideas through its humanities and education programs. TFANA is very happy to continue its co-producing collaboration with The Shakespeare Theatre Company. The Wild Duck marks the third co-production between TFANA and STC building on co-productions of Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens featuring Kathryn Hunter, directed by Simon Godwin and The Merchant of Venice featuring John Douglas Thompson as Shylock and directed by Arin Arbus..
TFANA’s productions have played nationally, internationally, off and on Broadway. In 2001, TFANA became the first American theater company invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company. TFANA has just partnered with Edinburgh’s Royal Lyceum Theatre for The Shakespeare Exchange in a transatlantic partnership: In spring of 2024, TFANA presented the Lyceum’s Macbeth (an undoing). In January 2025, the Lyceum presented TFANA’s The Merchant of Venice.
TFANA is also committed to a civic role. It created and runs the largest in-depth program to introduce Shakespeare and classic drama in New York City’s public schools. Since its inception in 1984, the program has served more than 140,000 students. TFANA is committed to economic access. In addition to offering selected Pay What You Can Performances, its New Deal Ticket Initiative offers $20 tickets to those age 30 and under and full-time students of any age for all dates of all its productions.
In 2013, TFANA opened its first permanent home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center (PSC), in the Brooklyn Cultural District. The heart of PSC is its performance space: the 299-seat Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage, a uniquely flexible space capable of multiple configurations between stage and audience; as well as the 50-seat Theodore C. Rogers Studio.
TFANA honors the Lenape and Canarsie people, on whose ancestral homeland Polonsky Shakespeare Center is built.
