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MONMOUTH — William Shakespeare’s “King Lear” is the Theater at Monmouth’s Shakespeare in Maine Communities offering for 2018.
“King Lear” will tour for three weeks to schools and community centers across the state from Oct. 9-26 and run for one weekend in Cumston Hall Oct. 12 through 14.
The production is part of Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest. The Shakespeare in Maine Communities tour is also funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission and the Betterment Foundation.
Theater at Monmouth has provided literature-based education programs in schools and community centers since the Theater’s founding. Since 2005, TAM has taken the Bard on the road with Shakespeare in Maine Communities– featuring 60 to 90-minute adaptations of Shakespeare with five to eight actors. The target grade levels for the tour are middle and high schools; previous tours have reached more than 6,000 students annually. For more information about TAM’s Education Tours visit www.theateratmonmouth.org/education-tours
In the play, two aging fathers, one a king, one his courtier, reject the children who truly love them. Their blindness unleashes a tempest of pitiless ambition–plunging king and kingdom into a hell of treachery, madness, and violence. Tender, chaotic, moving and shocking, “King Lear” reveals the worst and best in human nature.
Director Michael Dix Thomas, describes King Lear as “epic, angsty, and exciting. The excitement and drama come from the imaginative world, the high stakes adventures, the deliciously evil villains, and the self-sacrificing heroes.” For many, King Learis about age and the loss of status, faculties, and the pride that accompanies the final stage of human life; but the play also focuses on the next generation. The younger generation are forced to carve out their own place in the world in the face of irresponsible leadership. TAM’s production explores the extremes of human brutality and the ultimate Shakespearean questions the pure-hearted heroes must confront: How should we act when our time comes? What must we do? What makes us human? King Lear demands that we consider our role in a changing society and examine how our own humanity and values will contribute to a new world order.
Adapted by Thomas, “King Lear” features Wendy Way as King Lear, Katelyn Manfre as Goneril, Jelani Pitcher as Edgar/Cornwall, James Noel Hoban as Albany Gloucester, Paul Haley as Kent, Heather Irish as Regan/Oswald, Ardarius Blakely as Edmund, and Chloe Bell as Cordelia/Fool. Set design is by Meg Anderson, costume design is by Elizabeth Rocha, lighting design is by Jim Alexander.
The Cumston Hall performances are at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Oct. 12, 1 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 13 and 7:30 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 14. For tickets or booking information call 207-933-9999 or visit theateratmonmouth.org
