The outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. Photo credit: TheOldGlobe.org
The Taming of the Shrew kicks off the return of the Old Globe’s Summer Shakespeare Festival on Sunday at the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre at Balboa Park.
The Globe’s artistic director, Barry Edelstein, called the production of the popular comedy, by Shana Cooper, whose work has been presented at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Chicago Shakespeare and Yale Rep, “fresh, modern, and wildly energetic.”
“She takes the play very seriously even as she mines new levels of romance and laughter in its complex views of gender, power and love,” he added. “San Diego audiences will enjoy this Shrew under the stars, and we could not be happier to welcome them again.”
An earlier version of this production of The Taming of the Shrew premiered at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival four years ago.
Cooper directs a cast of 20, which includes James Udom as Petrucio (the 2021 film Macbeth with Denzel Washington) and Deborah Ann Woll as Katherine (Karen Page in Netflix’s “Daredevil” and Jessica Hamby in HBO’s “True Blood”).
The cast also includes students from the The Old Globe and University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program.
Tickets are available online for Taming, which runs through July 10. Then Summer Shakespeare Festival concludes with A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
The whimsical comedy will be directed by an Old Globe resident artist, Patricia McGregor, and run from July 31 to Sept. 4.
The performance schedule for both productions is Tuesday through Sunday at 8 p.m. Regular ticket prices start at $30.
In alignment with the state of California, the Old Globe will not require patrons to show proof of vaccination or wear masks. However, the theater still strongly recommends using a mask.