For Immediate Release: March 25, 2005
Media Contact: Elizabeth Eckhardt, Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, 215.496.9722

“O wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful, and yet again wonderful” As You Like It, lll,iii

The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival, under the Artistic Direction of Carmen Khan, is proud to present its 2005 season with William Shakespeare's As You Like It and Hamlet, running in repertory respectively from April 1-May 28, 2005 and April 15-May 29, 2005. The Opening Night performance will be on Friday, April 1, 2005 at 7:00pm.

The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival is doing something new this year: a true Shakespeare Festival—eight weeks of plays and related events—where the excitement of each event spills over and charges the next; where the convergence of personalities and the friction of ideas combine to make a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.

The Festival begins on April 1st, with the opening performance of As You Like It, and continues with a full schedule of events—performances, lectures and discussions, Shakespeare's Birthday Party, workshops and classes—through the final curtain of Hamlet on May 29th.

AS YOU LIKE IT and HAMLET
Artistic Director, Carmen Khan directs two plays seldom performed together in repertory, As You Like It and Hamlet. The experience of these two immortal plays, one a fairy tale and the other a great tragedy, side by side will allow each to inform, illuminate and resonate with the other.

The Director
Artistic Director, Carmen Khan founded The Philadelphia Shakespeare Festival in 1996. Before this she was Artistic Director of The Red Heel Theatre from which The Festival evolved. Carmen received her Bachelor of Education from The University of London and her Master of Fine Arts in Acting from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. Theatre experience includes: company member, The Hip Pocket Theatre; co-founder/co-Artistic Director, The Laughing Stock Theatre; actor/teacher, The People's Light and Theatre Company.

The Cast
A company of fabulous actors will perform both plays. Festival veterans Karen Peakes (Rosalind, Ophelia) and Buck Schirner (Jaques,Claudius) will be joined on stage by some exciting new faces, including New York resident Josh Sharback in the role of Hamlet. Josh will also appear as Charles and William in As You Like It.

The esteemed designers who will help transport audiences to Arden and Elsinore are Donald Eastman (set designer), Jerold Forsyth (lighting designer: As You Like It) and Peter Jakubowski (lighting designer: Hamlet), Vickie Esposito (costume designer), Obadiah Eaves (composer/sound designer: As You Like It), Nick Kourtides (sound designer: Hamlet) and Louise Grafton (prop master).

Performance times for As You Like It and Hamlet are: Wednesdays and Thursdays 10:30am & 7pm; Fridays and Saturdays 8pm; Sundays 2pm. All performances will be held in the intimate 120-seat theatre at 2111 Sansom Street.

For more information or to purchase tickets please call 215-496-8001. Tickets $26-$33; student, group and senior discounts available.

Go to News Releases»