Coriolanus - Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival

Shakespeare’s Original Anti-Hero.

By William Shakespeare

July 22 to August 2 | Schubert Theatre

Deep Cut

Coriolanus—a relentless warrior and a celebrated hero until his pride becomes his downfall. Once the people’s champion, he becomes their greatest threat when his contempt for the masses collides with the politics of power. Coriolanus asks: What happens when a hero believes he’s above those he serves? Experience it “Extreme Shakespeare” style—actors arrive with lines learned, rehearse independently, and open within days. No director. No designers. No safety net. Just the raw power of Shakespeare’s explosive tragedy.

RUN TIME: 2 1/2 Hours

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Artists

Cast

Katrina Clark*
Titus Lartius

Akeem Davis*
Cominus

Sarah Gliko*
Sicinius Velutus

John Hedges*
Junius Brutus

Elliot Jones
Young Martius

Geoffrey Kent*
Coriolanus

Mark Thomas McKenna*
Nicanor / Senator /Conspirator

David Pica*
Tullus Aufidius

Susan Riley Stevens*
Volumnia

Greg Wood*
Menenius Agrippa

Michael Covel
Ensemble

Ian Higgins
Ensemble

Mariana Marcel
Ensemble

Joanna Marie
Ensemble

Isabella Marin
Ensemble

Christian Tuffy
Ensemble

Sophia Twohig
Ensemble

Alice Zelenko
Ensemble

Creatives

Ashani Smith*
Production Stage Manager

Monica H. Lagana*
Assistant Stage Manager

Kim Carson
Intimacy Director

Greg Leaming
Text Coach

Geoffrey Kent*
Fight Choreographer

Greg Wood*
Script Adaptation

*Member of Actors’ Equity Association, the Union of Professional Stage Actors and Stage Managers in the United States.

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Reviews

Kiran Pandey, Broad Street Review

"...testament to the value of PSF’s continuing experiment..."

Paul Willistein, Lehigh Valley Press

"...an opportunity to see Shakespearean actors at the height of their powers."

Jennifer Kramer, Play Shakespeare

"...PSF sharpens its political themes into something all too relevant."

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Show Features

An Action Actor Approaches Coriolanus

I hated my first encounter with Shakespeare: An awkward teenager in a ninth grade English class, plodding through Romeo & Juliet, reading it aloud incomprehensibly. It might as well have been in Latin. It was humorless, dead, and dusty.

What I really wanted was for school to end so I could rush home with my friends to play Dungeons & Dragons. D&D was my escape from the doldrums of public education into castles infested with monsters.

I often led the groups as a Dungeon Master, which meant pre-planning our encounters, designing maps as well as characters for them to ally with or slay as well as collaborating on the story of the campaign with the players. I loved bouncing from a charismatic king to a diabolical dragon to a cowering kobold. And the combat! I may not have known at my age how to throw or catch… well anything. But in D&D I could throw knives with pinpoint accuracy, loose arrow after arrow at a charging Bugbear and then flourish a swept hilt rapier for the coup-de-gras. Little did I realize my early teenage years inside the game would build the skills I needed for my career in professional theatre.