SCS Unveils Summer 2022 Productions
Tickets available in Early 2022 for Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Twelfth Night,
as well as World-Premiere of The Formula, by Kathryn Chetkovich
August 24, 2021- SANTA CRUZ, CA-Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), a nationally recognized independent professional theater company in Santa Cruz County with deep local roots that go back more than 40 years, announced the selection of three plays for its Summer 2022 season. The season begins with a World-Premiere of The Formula by Kathryn Chetkovich – inspired by Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Ellen Maguire, and a co-production with Blissfield. Twelfth Night and The Tempest by William Shakespeare will round out the festival. Performances will take place next summer at the Audrey Stanley Grove (The Grove) in DeLaveaga Park. Tickets will be on sale in early 2022.
“As we begin to emerge from the shipwreck and isolation of our pandemic lives, I find hope in the realization that we do not have to return to the world we left,” said Mike Ryan, artistic director, Santa Cruz Shakespeare. “We can abandon ideas that have outgrown their usefulness, challenge the status quo, and recreate ourselves, our community, and our world with greater compassion and authenticity. The plays of our Summer 2022 season encourage us in that great endeavor. In all of them, characters have grown trapped by old ways of thinking and are shocked awake by calamity, self-examination and love.”
“As we wrap up our nearly sold-out 2021 season of artistically fulfilling and culturally relevant productions, while balancing the challenges of Covid, we are filled with gratitude for the support the community has shown us,” said Larry Mabrey, managing director, Santa Cruz Shakespeare. “We’re optimistic we will be at full capacity next summer in The Grove at DeLaveaga Park, bringing our audiences three compelling productions that will entertain and inspire all ages.”
Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare, directed by Paul Mullins
Twelfth Night introduces us to Viola who is shipwrecked physically, and then introduces her to a cast of characters who are shipwrecked emotionally. Stuck in old ideas of love and grief that have grown so stale as to become something else entirely, the world of Illyria is shocked from Winter into Springtime by the passions of young Viola who disguises herself as a man in order to survive. Called by the late Harold Bloom “the greatest of all Shakespeare’s pure comedies,” this production will be directed by Paul Mullins, one of SCS’s associate artists and the director of The Agitators, Pride and Prejudice, Love’s Labours Lost, The 39 Steps, and Hamlet.
The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
SCS’s second Shakespeare play also begins with a shipwreck, though this is one created by design…more specifically, by the magic of Prospero’s tempest. Determined to destroy those who banished her to the island, Prospero weaves spells of illusion and enchantment with the aid of the spirit Ariel to exact her revenge. As love blossoms before her eyes, Prospero must choose between vengeance and hope. Part tale of revenge and part comedy, The Tempest is full of music, spectacle, and the magic of art.
World Premiere of The Formula by Kathryn Chetkovich , directed by Ellen Maguire, Co- Production with Blissfield
This world premiere is inspired by William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In The Formula, a young neurochemist experimenting with the science of attraction brings an untested formula to his brother’s wedding to win over the bride, a fellow neurochemist – and fails spectacularly when the formula gets loose among the guests. By swapping a lab- manufactured substance for Puck’s “love-in-idleness” flower. The Formula poses questions not just about love in a chemical age but also about where and how our notions of true love are born and cultivated in the first place. This whip-smart comedy will have audience members thinking about those biochemical and cultural forces that shape our deepest, truest selves and desires.
Santa Cruz Shakespeare also plans to bring back the highly popular Staged Reading Series and their annual Fringe Production featuring members of the 2022 Summer Intern Program (conditions permitting).
Tickets for the 2022 Summer Season will be available in early 2022 through the SCS website or by calling the Box Office at (831) 460-6399.
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. For more information about SCS, visit santacruzshakespeare.org, Facebook, Instagram or Twitter.
