Includes two new plays and revival of The General from America
The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival will present Twelfth Night and Love’s Labour Lost during its 31st season next summer, as well as a revival of Richard Nelson’s 1996 play about Benedict Arnold, The General from America, and two new plays, Lauren Gunderson’s The Book of Will and Kate Hamill’s Pride and Prejudice.
“At the heart of each of these plays is a story about love — of comrades and friends, of family, of country, of romantic enchantments and unspeakable longing,” said HVSF Artistic Director Davis McCallum.
McCallum will direct The Book of Will, which tells the “mostly true story of how Shakespeare’s comrades rescued and preserved his work by publishing the First Folio in 1623.” McCallum will direct the play at the Denver Center for Performing Arts in January before bringing it to Garrison.
The second new play is the premiere of an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice by Kate Hamill. Hamill’s Sense and Sensibility received one of its earliest readings in 2015 as part of the Festival’s HVSF2 series. (The Book of Will and The General from America also were read at HVSF2, which will continue in 2017.)
Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night will play all summer, directed by Moritz von Stuelpnagel, a recent Tony nominee for his direction of Hand to God on Broadway. He directed All is Calm for HVSF in 2014 and is scheduled to direct a Broadway revival of Present Laughter starring Kevin Kline in the spring.
HVSF will also launch HVStories — a series focusing on the history, people and culture of the Hudson Valley — with Richard Nelson’s The General from America. Directed by Penny Metropulos, it is a retelling of Arnold’s defection and flight from West Point during the Revolutionary War. HVSF will partner with the Putnam History Museum and other local organizations to offer related programming.
Metropulos is the former associate artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, while Nelson, who lives in Rhinebeck, wrote the screenplay for Hyde Park on Hudson, the 2012 film starring Bill Murray and Laura Linney. His trio of plays, The Gabriels: Election Year in the Life of One Family, is running at The Public Theater in New York.
Also new for HVSF’s 2017 season is a partnership with New York’s The Acting Company, whose artistic director, Ian Belknap, will direct Love’s Labour Lost featuring HVSF’s Conservatory Company, an intensive training program for early-career actors. Following its run at HVSF, Belknap will take the play on tour to New York City schools with The Acting Company.
Casting will be announced early next year and tickets will go on sale in March. The plays will run in repertory from June 8 through Sept. 4.
