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MONMOUTH — “Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none” (“All’s Well That Ends Well”) is the theme for the summer as the Theater at Monmouth opens its season of classic Shakespearean thrillers, contemporary romances and fantastical flights of fantasy.
The plays of the Power, Passion & Privilege Season explore liberty, justice and equality, the theater said in a news release announcing the summer lineup.
The season features two Maine premiers: Lolita Chakrabarti’s “Red Velvet” imagines the experience of Ira Aldridge, the first black man to portray Othello, as the abolition of slavery is fought in the London streets. Rick Elice’s “Peter and the Starcatcher,” a swashbuckling prequel to J.M Barrie’s “Peter Pan,” reveals the magic that launched a scrappy orphan into the infamous “Boy Who Never Grew Up.”
The theater’s five mainstage productions will be directed by women and were selected to engage audiences in a dialogue on the dynamics of gender, race, leadership and society, the release said.
Producing Artistic Director Dawn McAndrews selected the lineup of plays in response to world events.
“Working in the theater, we do not have the flexibility to address current events in the same way as the media,” she said. “We don’t have the luxury of a 24-hour news cycle response. Our coming season is planned more than a year in advance, reflecting or examining social issues that directly affect our community. I find it fascinating how a play written more than 400 years ago, or 20 years ago, or five years ago, can still speak to our modern perceptions and concerns. The really good places not only entertain but, hopefully, teach us something about ourselves.”
Each summer, audiences from across Maine and the country visit to enjoy the natural beauty of central Maine and the grandeur of historic Cumston Hall, the home of Theater at Monmouth. A 117-year-old Victorian opera house, Cumston Hall includes a 250-seat jewel-box theater with exceptional acoustics and original murals painted by Harry Cochrane.
Allen Adams of The Maine Edge says that the Theater at Monmouth “mounts consistently excellent programming in a beautiful space. It’s well worth the trip.” As the only professional theatre in Maine dedicated to Shakespeare and the classics, the theater is a critical contributor to the cultural life of the state, the release said.
“Three Days of Rain,” by Richard Greenberg and directed by Kate Bergstrom opens on Saturday, July 1, and runs through Friday, Aug. 18. “Greenburg’s play doesn’t shy away from the less glamorous sides of filial Intimacy or friendship,” Bergstrom said of the play. “Nor does it lose the ephemeral romance that is human beings bonding together to form a home. This is a thrilling and difficult balance to find.”
Next up is Molière’s “The Learned Ladies,” directed by Sally Wood, which runs Thursday, July 6, through Sunday, Aug. 20. Wood invites you to take part in the “ridiculous, midsummer madness” that is “The Learned Ladies.”
Shakespeare’s “Macbeth,” directed by Dawn McAndrews runs Thursday, July 13, through Friday, Aug. 18. “Ultimately the play is not simply about ambition or evil but the lust to have more than you ever imagined, and the will to achieve it,” says McAndrews. “This very human desire is surely something we have seen in our world, our leaders, and, undoubtedly, in ourselves.”
“Othello” runs from Thursday, July 20, through Saturday, Aug. 19, and is directed by Catherine Weidner. “The whole world is in Othello,” said Weidner. “Shakespeare’s story leaves us thinking hard about assimilation, status, gender, and race in profound human ways.”
Lolita Chakrabarti’s “Red Velvet,” directed by Jennifer Nelson, runs Thursday, July 27 through Thursday, Aug. 17. “As a theater worker, an African American and a lover of history, I was thrilled to be invited to mount this play,” said Nelson. “I hope it will resonate for you as a very late, long overdue tribute to a man who never gave up his mission to create beauty for audiences around the world.”
