Nebraska Shakespeare

Double Dose of Titus and Twelfth Tops Bills

Nebraska Shakespeare in Omaha will be mounting productions of Titus Andronicus and Twelfth Night for its 2013 summer season, and the company is also featuring those two works by Shakespeare as part of its Shakespeare on the Silverscreen series.

This will be the first time Nebraska Shakespeare has tackled Titus in its 26-year history, and Interim Artistic Director Vincent Carlson-Brown has already sensed the excitement generated by the festival's decision to stage this early Shakespearean tragedy. "Titus will prove to be exciting for us and our audience, as we work through Shakespeare's earliest tragedy with the integrity in which it was originally written, while maintaining a sensitivity to our long-time audience," Carlson-Brown wrote in a note to patrons. He will be directing the production, which opens June 27 for a two-weekend run.

Counterbalancing Titus will be the Anthony Clark-Kaczmarek–directed Twelfth Night, which opens on June 20 and concludes July 7.

Nebraska Shakespeare's third annual Shakespeare on the Silverscreen series begins Feb. 26 with a screening of the first two installments in the PBS documentary series Shakespeare Uncovered: the Ethan Hawke–hosted program on Macbeth and the Joely Richardson–hosted program on Shakespeare's comedies. Trevor Nunn's 1996 Twelfth Night will screen on March 5, and Julie Taymor's 1999 Titus will show on March 12.

This summer season will feature several activities preceding the plays' 8 p.m. curtain times. The Shakespearience tent (not related to Shakespeareances.com) opens at 6 p.m. offering interactive activities for young people. The Green Show starts at 6:30 p.m. as does the Scholar's Forum featuring seminars with the artists and scholars who help put on the summer's productions. Winning sonnets from the 16th annual Anne Dittrick Sonnet Writing Contest will be read at 7 p.m., and 7:15 p.m. marks the start of "Two-Minute Shakespeare!" in which actors are challenged by audience suggestions to perform Shakespeare plays in 120 seconds or less.

January 31, 2013

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