Be vigitant! And if you have legs— you will come! To the final production of the 2026 Frederick Shakespeare Festival— Ardeo Theatre Company’s Much Ado About Nothing! Set in the bodacious and totally rad 1980s, this hilarious Shakespearean comedy is directed by Aaron Angello and features a mostly repertory cast from the FSF first main-stage show of 2026, Henry IV Part 1. Witty, humorous, heartfelt, and above all fun,
I will live in thy heart, die in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes— and moreover, I will go with thee to— the black box at Tatem Arts to crash a rehearsal? Bet Shakespeare didn’t see that one coming! And neither, perhaps did the fantastic four— Beatrice, Benedick, Claudio, and Hero— as they were beset upon by me for a romping jaunt of a round-robin interview! In a TheatreBloom sit down exclusive, we’ve picked the brains of Shakespeare’s living finest…Gillian Shelly,
Is not truth the truth? Instinct is a great matter. And your instincts ought be telling you to get thee to Frederick for the inaugural production of the 2026 Frederick Shakespeare Festival— Henry IV Part 1 as presented by Unstrung Harpist. Directed by Evan Crump, this jam-packed history can turn even the most skeptical of audient into a history appreciator if not wholly an enthusiast. Remarkably well executed, this sword-clashing, heartbreaking, villainously ripe tale doth tread upon the heels of Richard II,
‘Zounds, I will speak of it; and let my soul want mercy, if I do not join with them!
And speak on’t I shall. Borrowing some words in true wordsmith fashion, a call to attend! Attend thyselves upon this festival of merriment, this festival of drawn-daggers and teacups (every family has one) and knavery and bloody history and comedy and tragedy and all! Tis true— tis The Frederick Shakespeare Festival upon which I dote and dare speak (and will be waiting for two of the directors to flounce me round the ears for my bastardization of Shakespeare’s tongue,
author: Erin Tarpley
“Love’s a reason without reason”
What is the first trope you think of when you think of Shakespeare? Star-crossed lovers? Mistaken identities? Cross-dressing? Tragic flaws? Dramatic irony? Do you tend to prefer his tragedies? Comedies? Romances?? Well, when it comes to The Tale of Cymbeline, this show feels like it is competing for a “Shakespeare-Trope” bingo game; and all the audience is a winner with this production!
For let them be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade (and indoor air-conditioning!) minions of the moon! Said Falstaff, Act I Scene ii, more or less. In a TheatreBloom sit-down, we’re chit-chatting all around the moon minions— or at least with two of them— Evan Crump, Artistic Director of Unstrung Harpist and director of Henry IV Part I, and Aaron Angello, Co-Artistic Director of Ardeo Theatre Company and director of Much Ado About Nothing— AND they’re both acting in each other’s Shakespeare offerings in the 2026 Frederick Shakespeare Festival!
How now, summer spirit? Have you brought us hot ice and wondrous strange snow? Or a mess of Athenian lovers, a Faerie Brawl, and some Rude Mechanicals all dusted up in one moonlit spell? All of that, says you? Then you must be alluding to A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Just Off Broadway! The first of the Bard’s ilk to tread the boards at JoB and it’s a sensational production under the keen and goodly direction of Mistress Kelly Williams Carlson,
Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a Duke o’er-thrown
That ended him and his daughter dear, on an island all alone.
Though not so alone as they thought they were— among spirits of earth and air
And then a conjured-magic sea-spun storm that brought their en’mies there.
The plot then thickens there, my friend, and there’s so much more to say
About the entities and denizens that populate this play
Magic.
From the court to the country— Arden is your stage! And your stage of Arden is currently being staged at The Folger Theatre. Oh, look— unicorn! As You Like It is sliding onto The Folger Theatre stage just in time for spring and it’s as refreshing and revitalizing as the much-needed warmer weather in the nation’s capital. Directed by the insanely talented Timothy Douglas, this production of one of Shakespeare’s more popular comedies— as envisioned by The Folger Theatre’s Artistic Director Karen Ann Daniels— is effervescent in its existence,
“Fear is like a rhubarb enema!” might just be the wildest thing I’ve ever heard come out of the mouth of a player at a Rude Mechanical’s show. And I’ve seen their King John! My one regret (aside from seeing their King John) is that I couldn’t hear the rest of the line— delivered in utter brilliance by Marin (Linda “Spencer” Dye) the fraidy-cat servant to Roselo because both myself and the rest of the audience were laughing so hard it drowned out whatever insanity came next.
By the pricking of my thumb… a wicked new year does this way come!
Not exactly what Shakespeare had in mind, but the dude had a lot going on with thumbs. I mean biting them started a whole street brawl in that other bloody tragedy, so why shouldn’t pricking them bring about the end of days? Seems par for the course with the country’s current climate. What better way to welcome the new year than with a production of the bloody and iconic,
Tis the season of hospitality, merriment, and openheartedness! Come in and know them better, man! Tis the season— their 11th, in fact— for putting that timeless holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, upon their stage. Tis the season for uplifting spirits, for heartwarming festivities, and for radical, positive change. Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s A Christmas Carol is truly a cherished stage tradition, nestled right in the heart of Charm City and is bringing jubilation amid the bleakness that 2025 has turned out to be;
“Speak what we feel not what we ought to say.” A quote from Edgar in Act V; Scene III of Shakespeare’s King Lear, one which actually did make it into this rendering of King Lear as presented by The Rude Mechanicals at the Greenbelt Arts Center through September 7th 2025. Often a show will sit and rankle with me, because of a certain line, a certain choice, a certain approach,
author: Erin Tarpley
“A coward dies a thousand times before his death, but the valiant taste of death but once.”
As the sun begins to set behind the many hills of Historic Ellicott City, the air begins to cool. But tonight (or today, if you go on a Sunday), you are not in Historic Ellicott City. No, my friend. You have travelled back in time and space 2,000 years to the historic seven hills of Ancient Rome.
It may be the opinion of some that I was born to speak all mirth and no matter, but one doth not know how much an ill word can empoison liking. Let’s hope that’s enough mangled lines from the Bard’s source material to bait the proverbial bear and get this review of The Rude Mechanicals’ Much Ado About Nothing underway. Directed by Shirely Long, this Shakespearean comedy about— well, mostly a fuss made over nothing,
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Shakespeare, ammiright? WRONG. Like so many of those popular “of the times” lines attributed to the plagiarizing bastard, this one also doesn’t belong to Billy Shakes. (It’s actually a deeply distorted misquote from William Congreve’s The Mourning Bride, 1697 but that’s a tale for another time.) But the sentiment is definitely there. Famous. Timeless. Universal appeal. All percolating up and out of the Jacobean Era of England from that historically renowned master of page and pen,
Didja know that one of them actresses in that It’s The Comedy of Errors, Hon! has a baby who shares the exact same birthday as mah nephew? They’re both now eight months old, hon! That’s Smalltimore for ya! And while I didn’t invent that phrase, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is reinventing the wheel with it’s fabulously uplifting, nonsensical production of It’s The Comedy of Errors, Hon! Directed by company founder Ian Gallanar,
To go or not to go? That is the question! Technically it’s ‘be’ or ‘not be’ but with Shakespeare being hundreds of years of dead, I’m sure he’ll grant us this liberal creative license…especially considering what the world at large is doing to his canon from a musical standpoint! I won’t extoll and wax poetic like Polonius, earning me an eyeroll from Laertes and Ophelia, no I shall to the point as brevity is the soul of wit.
If love be rough— be rough with love! Or get on down to Club Escalus for Mercutio’s Funky Boogie Woogie! Or both! All of the above. Groove to rhythm of ’75, baby— and nah, we don’t mean no 1575. We’re talkin’ 1975, ya dig? And we’re talkin’ Baltimore Baby! Closing out their 2023/2024 season on their Main Stage (and please join them for their fabulous summer fling out at the PFI in Ellicott City when R&J closes) Chesapeake Shakespeare Company is bringing you the grooviest production of Romeo &
author: Wes Dennis & Liana Olear
How shall you beguile the lazy time, if not with some delight? Perhaps by running off to Silver Spring Stage for their performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and spending the evening with besotted Athenian lovers, pranking fairies, and those oddest of creatures, amateur actors!
The Director, Emma Hooks, shows a solid understanding of Shakespeare’s language, and her actors illustrate the words with enthusiastic action (though language purists – or audience members not expecting to hear multiple F-bombs punctuating the iambic pentameter – may not appreciate the choice to also insert modern phrases to add reactions where the bard neglected to spell them out).
“Such welcome and unwelcome things at once ‘tis hard to reconcile.” Macduff, ActIVsc.iii
I spent hours trying to find the way I felt about the current Rude Mechanical’s production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth only to have Billy Bard having already wrapped it up for me more than halfway through the show. This particular production is a balancing act of strong performances, questionable conceptualizations, impressive technological inclusions, mismatched aesthetics, and a barrage of death,
It was a bright and cold day in September and the clocks were striking 13. No, that’s not quite right.
We that are true lovers run into strange capers. That’s more like it. Or rather, Shakespeare’s As You Like It, as directed by Ian Gallanar now appearing on the stages of Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s boards for their fall-opening of the 2023/2024 season. Though one could readily meet the confusion of “Am I watching George Orwell’s 1984 (or even L.
“By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes”
“Now is the Winter of our discontent”…. No wait, nevermind. That’s a different Shakespeare show, and a different season entirely. But Summer is here in Maryland and when it comes to the Macbeths, “discontent” is an apropos word to define their predicament, but the exact opposite to describe how you will feel as you enjoy this timeless production of the Scottish Play;
When the play opens with the infamous “To be or not to be…” you start to think time is out of joint. Or maybe that you’ve just misremembered how Hamlet starts? You ever look at one of those maps of the United States where all the states have been shoved around into different spaces in the outline but it still mostly looks like the outline of the country even though everything is all discombobulated?
In a modern context, the production of William Shakespeare’s works largely hangs upon the performers’ ability to voice these verses in such a way that the audience not only instantly and instinctually understands their meaning, but may also benefit from their specific notes of humor, tragedy, etc. In this sense, Spotlighters Theatre’s Twelfth Night – the classic gender-bending romantic comedy – is a decidedly mixed bag.
The older generation of performers seem to know exactly what they’re doing here,
What great ones do the less will prattle of— and here be the great ones: Chesapeake Shakespeare Company, in their 20th Anniversary season, presenting to you something certainly worth prattling about! Twelfth Night, directed by the company’s founding Artistic Director, Ian Gallanar, is arguably one of The Bard’s more sensible comedies and CSC does it a great justice with excellent performances, lively music, and a charming aesthetic that would float anyone’s boat.
Move over, Tom Stoppard (and also Disney-Marvel-verse). You no longer hold the market on “origin backstory/alternate POV” when it comes to Shakespeare. That’s right, there’s a new— okay, not new, per say— but there’s another option when it comes to doing weird stuff with Shakespeare that isn’t Shakespeare but still is totally Shakespeare. And Artistic Synergy of Baltimore’s children’s performance group has got it. The Rude Mechanicals, by Ed Graczyk, is now appearing on the ASoB stage,
Ay, me! What’s in a name? Would a show by any other name still be so tragic? Probably. The Bard’s Wagon Players have surfaced for their annual summertime “Shakespeare in the Park” production! And this year— the sizzling summer of 2022— it’s none other than the infamous tragedy, Romeo & Juliet. Directed by Nathan Rosen, Produced by Bob Frank, and Stage Managed by Liana Olear, this outdoor offering has two different locations— Hannah More Park in Reisterstown and Catonsville Community Park in Catonsville— over the course of two different weekends,
“Friendship is constant in all other things, Save in the office and affairs of love.”
Love is in the air; but some may need a little meddling, I mean “help,” from their friends to realize it. As for the audience, it is easy to feel the love in Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s Much Ado About Nothing. Playing under the open sky and in the ruins at the PFI Historic Park in Ellicott City now through July 24th,
“Oh for a muse of fire that would reach the uppermost heights of creativity— the stage a kingdom…” we’ve all heard it. We all recognize it. Do we all know that it comes from one of Shakespeare’s histories? You may have heard it, recognize it, and even know that it comes from Henry V, but you’ve never heard it until you hear it slipping delicately over the lips of Lesley Malin, Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s Executive Producing Director— or for the purposes of this performance— The Chorus.