Review: ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD at St. Louis Shakespeare Festival is Chaotically Lively

St. Louis Shakespeare Festival has done what few other companies have in recent years. The entire run of their production of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead sold out weeks before the production opened. Two additional performances were added. Those performances also sold out in just 24 minutes.

Artistic Tom Ridgley, Executive Director Kate Tichelkamp, and the rest of the staff at St. Louis Shakespeare Festival are thriving. They are making the works of The Bard accessible to broad audiences. Each summer their grand production in the Shakespeare Glen at Forest Park draws large crowds for its month-long run.

If you can’t get to their annual mainstage production, no worries, St. Louis Shakespeare Festival will bring the classics to you with their annual TourCo production. During the late summer and early fall, the festival travels to dozens of parks throughout the Bi-State area, and a little beyond, with a 90-minute abridged production of a classic. They entertain thousands of people who turn out for their free performances.

Fresh off their St. Louis Theatre Circle Award win for Best New Play (last season’s Romeo & Zooliet), St. Louis Shakespeare Festival, in partnership with Albion Theatre Company, are presenting Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at the Kranzberg Black Box. The production, directed by Tom Ridgely, is the hottest theatre ticket in town.

The absurdist Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead is Stoppard’s offbeat adaptation inspired by Hamlet. His 1966 play thrusts the titular sidekicks into the leading roles.

The play originally premiered at the Edinburg Fringe Festival. The 1968 Tony Award winning production was Stoppard’s first play on Broadway, running for just over a year. Out of its eight Tony nominations, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead won for Best Play, Scenic Design, Costume Design, and Producer.

Ridgley uses the diminutive Kranzberg Black Box to immerse the audience in the action. Patrons enter the theater through the dimly lit performance space getting their first take of Katherine Stepanek’s and Amanda Werre’s hauntingly ominous lighting and sound design.

If you are going, it is critical to arrive to the theater early. Late seating is not possible. The audience traverses the performance space to reach their seats.

Stepanek’s minimalistic set design uses large rolling prop pieces and draped materials as opposed to a fully built out set. The intentionally sparce staging adds to the confusion of the somewhat dim protagonists’ journey and gives the production the feeling that the action is occurring in the backstage wings of the theatre.

When the audiences first meet Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, the actors are illuminated by what appears to be a single ghost light foreshadowing their mischievous and traitorous acts in Hamlet. Ridgley has his actors, Mitchell Henry-Eagles and Ryan Omar Stack, lean into Stoppard’s confused, not-too-bright protagonists. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern seem unaware of their roles in the Shakespearean tragedy.

Henry-Eagles and Stack have masterful command of Stoppard’s witty wordplay and fully commit into the caricatures of an idiot duo. Think Bill and Ted, or Harold and Kumar, perform Shakespeare. While Henry-Eagles and Stack’s portrayals aren’t nearly as dim as the movie characters, they’re certainly oblivious as to what’s happen around them. Their portrayals, and their engagement with the Leading Player from the Tragedians, give Stoppard’s tragicomedy its humor.

Jeff Cummings is a scene stealer as the Leading Player. His is an all-knowing mysterious soothsayer. Cumming’s Leading Player possesses a showy confidence that further confounds Rosencrantz and Guildenstern as he continually foreshadows their fate. Cummings is in a role that affords him the chance to give an outrageously charismatic performance. He owns the stage, sinking his teeth into Stoppard’s theatrical ringmaster with great vigor, zest, and intensity.

Sean Seifert, a Theater Circle Award nominee for his work in last year’s Baskerville at New Jewish Theatre, turns in an impressive performance as Hamlet. His conniving Prince of Denmark turns the fateful tables on his childhood friends who’ve betrayed his trust. Seifert, a less experience actor, is demonstrating remarkable versatility in both recent comedic and dramatic roles.    

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern may be dead, but the St. Louis Shakespeare Festival is very much alive. Those lucky enough to have secured a ticket to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead won’t be disappointed by this chaotically lively production of what Ridgley calls “Stoppard’s masterpiece.” The frenetically vibrant three act, two-and-one-half hour play, moves expediently courtesy of Ridley’s brisk direction and Cummings, Henry-Eagles, and Stack’s hyperbolic performances.

The sold-out run continues through April 11, 2026. Visit stlshake.org to add your name to the waitlist for tickets and to learn more about St. Louis Shakespeare Festival’s 2026 season.