Tickets on Sale May 1 for Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s 2026 Festival Season

Five Main Stage Productions Presented July through October at the Audrey Stanley Grove in DeLaveaga Park

April 28, 2026 – SANTA CRUZ, CA—Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), a nationally recognized professional theatre company in Santa Cruz County with deep local roots that go back more than 40 years, today announced tickets will go on sale May 1 for its 2026 expanded festival season, themed ‘Til Death Do Us Part. Performances take place July 11 through October 4 in the Audrey Stanley Grove (The Grove) in Santa Cruz’s DeLaveaga Park. Tickets will be available at santacruzshakespeare.org.

Following Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s most successful season to date, the 2026 festival will include five main stage productions running in rotating repertory: summer productions of William Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing and Macbeth, and Fences by August Wilson and fall productions of Private Lives by Noel Coward and The Last Five Years, a musical, by Jason Robert Brown.

“I’m thrilled to welcome audiences to the Audrey Stanley Grove for our biggest festival yet,” said Charles Pasternak, SCS artistic director. “Each of the productions in our 2026 season examine partnerships and marriage: Who were we before? Who are we within? And who might we be after? To many, marriage is the cornerstone of family. And families define a community. The 2026 festival season will look intensely at the building blocks that create our world. I invite you to join us on this journey.”

About the Productions:

Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
Director: Charles Pasternak
Opening Night: July 16, 8 p.m.

One of Shakespeare’s wittiest and most beloved comedies, the 2026 season will open with Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Of all the couples in Shakespeare, perhaps none is more widely loved than Beatrice and Benedick. Their battle of wits; their antagonism turned to eroticism; their history. Before the play begins, they already seem to define each other. The audience, like the other characters in the play, wait with excitement as their wits clash, and eventually, as their love blossoms.

 

Macbeth by William Shakespeare
Director: Paul Mullins
Opening Night: July 17, 8 p.m.

Dark, bloody, brutal, and magnificent, Shakespeare’s Macbeth is one of the greatest plays ever written. Its central couple, ironically, is one of Shakespeare’s happiest. At least at the beginning. Where Much Ado shows us the coming together of antagonists, Macbeth explores what we become when our second half is ripped away. A powerful unit, wildly in love with each other, the Macbeths follow the insinuations of the witches – the famous weird sisters – and commit murder in the name of their shared ambition: the throne of Scotland. But even with their goal achieved, Macbeth’s paranoia and guilt lead him further down the road of blood. The central unit tears apart under the shadow of its deeds. Who are these two without each other? Slowly and surely, the play shows us society’s ruin in the form of its leading pair.

Macbeth will star Dan Donohue in the title role and Paige Lindsey White as Lady Macbeth.

 

Fences by August Wilson
Director: Susan Dalian
Opening Night: July 30, 8 p.m.

August Wilson joins the Santa Cruz Shakespeare stage for the first time in 45 years. Fences is the perfect offering, wonderfully in line with the season’s theme: ’Til Death Do Us Part. Troy Maxson is one of Wilson’s great creations; Shakespearean in scope; a wordsmith and brilliant storyteller. He has survived the terrible trauma of his past and built himself a good life. But the backbone of that life, the spine that keeps it standing strong, is his wife Rose. Like all of Wilson’s best work, Fences is both mythic and intimate; the questions it asks both human and eternal.

 

Private Lives by Noel Coward
Director: Laura Gordon
Opening Night: September 5, 7 p.m.

If you think Beatrice and Benedick go at it in Much Ado, wait until you see Amanda and Elyot. Both on honeymoons with new spouses, having violently divorced years before, Amanda and Elyot discover each other sharing adjoining balconies in the same hotel. Well, one thing leads to another, and… sometimes the line between love and hate is so thin. In Noel Coward’s masterpiece, we witness two selfish, passionate, egotistical, madly in love people drive each other absolutely crazy. How can they possibly survive together? But more importantly, perhaps, how can they survive apart? With Coward’s searing wit, you’ll laugh until you cry while they scream until they kiss. And vice versa.

Private Lives will star Charles Pasternak as Elyot and Paige Lindsey White as Amanda.

 

The Last Five Years by Jason Robert Brown
Director: Laura Gordon
Music Direction: Luke Shepherd
Opening Night: September 12, 7 p.m.

Coming full circle on the theme, ‘Til Death Do Us Part, Brown’s gorgeous musical looks at the beginning and ending of a relationship through the eyes of Cathy and Jamie. In rotating songs, Cathy’s journey moves backward through the relationship, while Jamie’s moves forward. Through beautiful music and clever, moving lyrics, Brown looks deeply at the sacrifices we make, how we come to define each other, and what it costs to let it go.

The 2026 festival season will also include SCS’s Fringe Series, including two staged readings on Monday, August 17 and Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 7 p.m. Price is pay-what-you-will.

Monday Night Revels return with a broad lineup of one-night-only performances at the Grove throughout the season, including international a cappella superstars Rockapella and viral comic sensation Kristin Key. In addition to a mix of national touring acts, beloved tribute bands, comedy, and drag, SCS is adding Community Revels on select Tuesday nights, welcoming local Santa Cruz favorites to the stage, making the Audrey Stanley Grove a vibrant hub of entertainment every night throughout the summer.

SCS’s year-round programming begins this spring, with Vincent, the acclaimed one-person play by Leonard Nimoy, starring Artistic Director Charles Pasternak and directed by Alicia Gibson, running April 24 through May 10 at the Veterans Memorial Building in Downtown Santa Cruz. Tickets on sale online.

The year rounds out in December, as A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens returns for its third year at Veterans Memorial Building in Downtown Santa Cruz. Tickets will be available on May 1.

The seasonal box office opens for phone orders beginning May 1. Box office hours will be Tuesday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. Call 831-460-6399.

SCS’s performance calendar can be found online.

Learn more on the performances page.

About Santa Cruz Shakespeare

Featuring professional actors from around the country and inspired by deep local roots
that go back more than 40 years, Santa Cruz Shakespeare stages bold productions of
the plays of Shakespeare and other great playwrights that stimulate audiences’ senses
and spark their imagination. www.santacruzshakespeare.org


###