What lurks just below the surface of a “civilized” society?  Over the past nine years, during my tenure as Artistic Director, we have been confronted with the reality of just how tenuous our democracy is, how eager some factions of our own country are to strip away the rights of their fellow citizens, and how authority can be wielded as a weapon.  The two Shakespeare plays of our 2023 season plunge us deeply into the middle of the unsettling fragility of our present moment. 

In The Taming of the Shrew, characters struggle against the roles they have been prescribed, be they gender, class, or age.  And while the results of these struggles provide some of the most hilarious moments in the canon, they also leave us with unsettling questions about the human cost of maintaining the status quo. 

King Lear charts a monarch’s disturbing descent into madness, explores how the craving for power can shatter both kingdoms and families, and paints a chilling picture of the plight of humanity in an indifferent universe.  King Lear will mark Paul Whitworth’s debut at The Grove in the title role. 

Rounding out the season is Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will.  A play that tells the funny and moving story the two actors who worked to preserve Shakespeare’s legacy with the creation of the First Folio, it is a love letter to the Bard of Avon and his plays.  2023 will mark the 400th anniversary of the printing of the First Folio, and this production will be part of a broader celebration of that achievement in conjunction with UCSC’s Shakespeare Workshop. 

It brings me great pleasure to announce that incoming artistic director Charles Pasternak and I will be playing the roles of Condell and Heminges, the men who collected Shakespeare’s texts, as we co-lead the company in my final season at the helm. Come join us in The Grove next summer to see what the excitement is all about.

– Mike Ryan