International Shakespeare Center Announces First Repertory Season in Santa Fe

From August 22 through September 3, 2016, the award-winning Ducdame Ensemble will perform Shakespeare's Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice.

These shows build on the momentum created by Ducdame's visit during the February First Folio events when their Dames of Thrones: Women of Shakespeare's Histories sold out at the Adobe Rose.

The collaboration brings ISC into partnership with the Meow Wolf arts collective. Twelfth Night will be performed as immersion theater in their "House of Eternal Return" installation. Tickets include a pass to explore the installation before the performance. Ariana Karp, Ducdame director of Twelfth Night notes, "I'm thrilled and honored to be collaborating with artists of such innovation and caliber, and I feel deeply privileged to perform in such an extraordinary space that already holds so many memories and has touched so many people."

During their two-week stay in Santa Fe, members of Ducdame will team up with Meow Wolf to facilitate a workshop for young people at the JoAnn and Bob Balzer Creative Maker Studio and the David Loughridge Learning Center. Ducdame member Will McKay remarks, "We are very excited by the prospect of partnering with Meow Wolf to collaborate artistically with the community. Meow Wolf has brought so much imagination and inspiration and provides such an amazing nexus for creativity-we are excited to work with them to create a holistic arts workshop."

In a beautiful juxtaposition, Ducdame is also taking on one of Shakespeare's most complex and rich plays, The Merchant of Venice, directed by Alexander Kirby and starring Sean Boyd (Dallas Buyer's Club, The Magnificent Seven) as Shylock. ISC cofounder Robin Williams states, "The Merchant of Venice is a play that morphs into something we call our own in each new era. The ambiguities, complexities, richness of expression, the various possibilities of what to play up or play down, all provide remarkable potential for new insights into our own world."

Another new and much valued partnership plays into this rep season: Reed Meschefske, who runs the award-winning theater program at Santa Fe High School and hosted a LAMDA acting workshop for students in February, continues the collaboration with ISC, furthering our community outreach to youth. Meschefske remarks, "To have students work alongside professional artists and truly immerse themselves in the words of Shakespeare is something very few young actors get the chance to do. It is going to be a wonderful experience for everyone involved." Ariana Karp will be a guest artist in SFHS's fall production of Macbeth.

For tickets and more information, visit: http://www.InternationalShakespeare.center