Interview: Kim Strassburger Directs West Coast Premiere of A ROOM IN THE CASTLE at MOXIE Theatre

At MOXIE Theatre, director Kim Strassburger helms A Room in the Castle, running May 10 – June 7, 2026, the West Coast premiere of Lauren M. Gunderson’s reimagining of Hamlet. The play centers Ophelia, Queen Gertrude, and Anna, Ophelia’s handmaid, as they exist in the shadow of Elsinore while the men of Shakespeare’s tragedy remain unheard offstage. It reframes Hamlet through these women’s perspectives as they navigate confinement, power, and survival inside a system not built for them. Strassburger, whose credits include The Lehman Trilogy at Cygnet Theatre and The Children and Handbagged at MOXIE Theatre, draws on extensive Shakespeare experience—including training at LAMDA and her own work directing Hamlet—to shape this atmospheric production. The staging also reflects MOXIE’s mission to center and amplify women+ voices through theatre.

This play reframes Hamlet through the perspectives of Ophelia, Gertrude, and Anna instead of the men at the center of Shakespeare’s original play. What interested you most about telling this story through the women’s point of view?
After directing a production of Hamlet at Southwestern College two years ago, I was excited by Lauren Gunderson's play giving more agency to the women of Hamlet: Ophelia and Gertrude. Gunderson also adds another exciting female character, Anna, who is Ophelia's maid. Rather than portraying these women as victims in the world of Shakespeare's play, Gunderson gives them a voice and the ability to take control of their own fate.

One of the production’s most striking choices is that the male characters are never directly heard onstage. How does that absence reshape the audience’s understanding of Hamlet and its power dynamics? 
It gives emphasis to the women's voices in the play, in that their voices are literally not secondary to the voices of the men. We have created a really interesting and modern take on the world of Elsinore Castle that uses a lot of technology to tell this story.

How did you and the creative team collaborate to make this centuries-old story feel immediate for modern audiences? 
We have an amazing group of designers for this production who created an eerie and modern take on Elsinore Castle with the use of video, projections, sound effects, and lighting. All of the elements come together in this show to create an aesthetic that is equal parts Hamlet, The Shining, and The Ring.

I saw that previous productions incorporated projection design to help guide audiences through the parallel timeline of Hamlet. Will this production include projections or other multimedia elements, and how do they support the storytelling?
Absolutely! When audiences see the production, they will see a definitely modern take on Elsinore Castle.

The play asks what happens when women “rewrite” the narratives they’ve been trapped inside. What do you hope audiences leave thinking about after seeing this production? And do audiences have to be familiar with Hamlet in order to follow the story?
I hope that audiences think about the voices of young women today, and how these voices are often drowned out by the patriarchy and the narrative in our cultures about women's voices as secondary to the voices of men. While it may help for audiences to be familiar with Hamlet, it is not required, and audiences will understand the importance of women's agency regardless.

2026 Theater Fans' Choice Awards - Live Stats

Best Direction of a Play - Top 3

1. Joe Mantello - Death of a Salesman

19.4% of votes

2. Duncan MacMillan, Jeremy Herrin - Every Brilliant Thing

18.2% of votes

3. Whitney White - Liberation

10.2% of votes

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