Tag Archives: Actors’ Shakespeare Project

Oct 13

Between the Diet Coke Button and the Nuclear Codes: ASP’s “Macbeth”

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Omar Robinson (center) with Brian Demar Jones, Dennis Trainor Jr., Claire Mitchell, and Brooke Hardman (2025). Photo by Benjamin Rose Photography.

Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Christopher V. Edwards
Digital Playbill

Oct. 2-26, 2025
The Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts
321 Arsenal Street
Watertown, MA 02472

Content Warning: This production employs the use of water-based haze, stage cigarettes, flashing lights, strobe effects, and gunshots. 

RUN TIME: Approx. two hours and twenty-five minutes, including one intermission.

Warning: This critique includes light production spoilers. 

WATERTOWN, Mass — It’s been a busy quarter season for Macbeth performances: Commonwealth Shakespeare Company’s Stage2 student players performed Mackers in May; Cambridge’s Dream Role Players performed it in Longfellow Park last August; Boston Lyric Opera performed it at Emerson Colonial Theatre last weekend. Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production is at the Mosesian Center for the Arts in a vastly nontraditional production through October 26.  

ASP’s Artistic Director Edwards interprets Macbeth as a 1960s psychological and physical nightmare horrorscape in which fascistic tyranny, state-sanctioned drug abuse, bipartisan gaslighting and lies are de facto political tactics. In this version (as in our current White House), the psychological horrors outweigh the physical violence. Set in the U.S. immediately after the Cold War, title character Macbeth (Omar Robinson, unhinged and unbothered), Banquo (Jesse Hinson), Macduff (Brian Demar Jones), Ross (Jennie Israel), Malcolm (Chingwe Padraig Sullivan), Fleance (Vince Nguyen) and King Duncan (Dennis Trainor) are celebrating a battle win despite their personal tragendies. Amidst their revels, three psychological terrorists/witches (Jade Guerra, Amanda Esmie, Claire Mitchell) indoctrinate Lady Macbeth (Brooke Hardman) and Lord Macbeth into regicide through mind control manipulation and hallucinogenic drugs.    Continue reading →

Apr 23

Might Sound Crazy but it Ain’t No Lie: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream”

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The cast of Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (2025). Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project
By William Shakespeare 
Directed by Maurice Emmanuel Parent
Intimacy direction by Olivia Dumaine
Fight direction by Jesse Hinson
Scenic design by Ben Lieberson 
Costumes by Seth Bodie 
Lighting design by Brian Lilienthal
Sound design by Mackenzie Adamick 

April 11 through May 4, 2025
The Dorothy and Charles Mosesian Center for the Arts 
321 Arsenal St
Watertown, MA 02472

Review by Kitty Drexel

WATERTOWN, Mass. — Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a delight. I say this as someone who appreciates the plays of Shakespeare well enough but doesn’t prefer them to other theatre. This production is light and frothy fun that took me back to a much simpler time of bucket hats and glow sticks. Such fun is desperately needed now as fascism suffocates democracy like a knee on George Floyd’s neck. Continue reading →

Nov 19

Frothy, Fun, and Farcical: “Emma”

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Lorraine Victoria Kanyike, Fady Demian, Josephine Elwood, and Liza Giangrande in Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s production of Emma. Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project
Play by Kate Hamill, based on the novel by Jane Austen
Directed by Regine Vital
Scenic design by Saskia Martínez
Costume design by Nia Safarr Banks
Lighting design by Deb Sullivan
Sound design by Anna Drummond
Dramaturgy by Kristin Leahey
Featuring: Alex Bowden, Fady Demian, Josephine Moshiri Elwood, Liza Giangrande, Jennie Israel, Lorraine Victoria Kanyike, Dev Luthra, Mara Sidmore

Tickets and Information Here
November 14 – December 15
The Multicultural Arts Center
41 Second St., Cambridge, MA 02141

Critique by Maegan Bergeron-Clearwood

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — The Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center theatre is already ornate, bedecked with colorful railings, intricate carvings, and a soaring ceiling. It is a perfect fit for any Regency-era play, but especially for Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s Emma, which is positively dripping with femininity.

Scenic designer Saskia Martínez has draped virtually every surface with soft florals and pastels, cozying up the otherwise cavernous space and inviting audiences (some of whom are seated onstage with the actors – be prepared for audience participation) to settle in for a spot of tea and gossip. Costume designer Nia Safarr Banks paints with the same aesthetic brush: the dresses, stockings, and hats are varyingly anachronistic, with plenty of nods to modern fashion trends, but everything is pulled together with a palette of watercolor blues, pinks, and yellows. Continue reading →

Jun 05

Defiant Like It’s Banned in Florida: “As You Like It”

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Genevieve Simon and the cast of Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s As You Like It (2023). Photo by Nile Scott Studios.

Presented by Actors’ Shakespeare Project in partnership with The Theater Offensive
Directed by Harold Steward
Associated Directed by Brooke Hardman
Featuring Fady Demian, Lindsay Eagle, Gabriel Graetz, Jaime Josè Hernández, Doug Lockwood, Nathan Malin, Gavin Rasmussen, Genevieve Simon, Bobbie Steinbach, Regine Vital, Mishka Yarovoy

June 2 – 25, 2023
Tufts University’s Balch Arena Theater
40 Talbot Ave
Medford, MA 02155

Critique by Craig Idlebrook

MEDFORD, Mass. — At first glance, Actors’ Shakespeare Project’s declaration that its production of As You Like It “leans into (the play’s) famed crossdressing mayhem and gender euphoria” in defiance of the passage of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation could be as empty a stretch as a corporate Pride Month initiative. After all, As You Like It already is one of Shakespeare’s gender-bending plays, in which female protagonists find reasons to dress as men, woo men as men, and then be wooed in turn by women. Add to this that men played all the female parts in the original runs of these comedies, and on paper it seems like there would be little space to add more LGBTQ+ focus.

That is why it is all the more impressive that this production, done in partnership with The Theater Offensive, finds new ways to turn this absurd play into a weapon against the absurdity of a new wave of anti-LGBTQ+ hate. Continue reading →