"Storm Still" at Bridge Street Theatre

“STORM STILL” BRINGS SISTERHOOD, SHAKESPEARE, AND A FAMILY RECKONING TO BRIDGE STREET THEATRE

Three sisters. A backyard full of their late father’s belongings. And a childhood game that transforms Shakespeare’s “King Lear” into something intimate, unruly, and entirely their own.

Bridge Street Theatre’s 2026 MainStage Season continues October 1–11 with “Storm Still,” Gab Reisman’s funny, moving, and fiercely theatrical reimagining of one of Shakespeare’s most devastating family tragedies.

The play unfolds over the course of a single late-summer evening as three estranged sisters reunite in the backyard of their recently deceased father’s home. Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia have clothing to sort, furniture to move, papers to examine, and difficult decisions to make about what should be kept and what can finally be discarded.

But this is not the first time the sisters have played those famous Shakespearean daughters.

When they were children, the backyard became their kingdom and “King Lear” became their game. Now, surrounded by the physical remains of their father’s life, they begin playing again. Household objects become crowns, costumes, and weapons. The sisters trade characters, race through Shakespeare’s tragedy according to their own exuberant rules, and each take her turn inhabiting Lear himself.

What begins in playfulness gradually exposes the very different relationships the women had with their father—and the different choices they made as his health declined. One stayed. One helped carry the daily burden of care. One left. Each remembers the family differently, and each has her own understanding of loyalty, abandonment, survival, and love.

Part eulogy, part drinking game, and part childhood make-believe, “Storm Still” uses the architecture of “King Lear” to explore the stories families tell about themselves. As the sisters move between Shakespeare’s characters and their own unresolved history, the ancient tragedy becomes a living language through which they can confront grief, estrangement, caregiving, and the complicated inheritance of both love and harm.

Playwright and director Ashleigh Ann Gardner called the play “a lovely, buoyant, effervescent, female-centric re-thinking of one of Shakespeare’s most heart-wrenching plays.”

The Bridge Street Theatre production is directed by Jasmine Roth, a director and choreographer whose work examines individual, political, and relational transformation while centering stories of women and queerness. Roth is a resident director with Neurodivergent Plays and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Union College in Schenectady. Their previous directing credits include “Hamlet,” “Witch,” “You on the Moors Now,” “Dance Nation,” “Men on Boats,” “Matilda,” and “Macbeth.” “Storm Still” marks Roth’s Bridge Street Theatre debut.

Katherine Callaway appears as Cordelia. Callaway’s regional credits include “John Proctor Is the Villain” at Huntington Theatre Company, “Haunted” at Company One, and “Rooted” and “Be Here Now” at Lyric Stage Boston.

Jess Kadish plays Regan, a role she previously performed in “King Lear” with Montana Shakespeare in the Parks. Her credits also include work with American Shakespeare Center, Renaissance Theatre, 16th Street Theater, The Gift Theatre, Catskill Mountain Shakespeare, and Voyage Theater Company.

Elizabeth Loycano appears as Goneril. Her Broadway credits include “The Phantom of the Opera,” “Dracula, the Musical,” “The Woman in White,” and “Oklahoma!” Her extensive screen credits include “Paint,” “Memory,” “Demolition,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “FBI: Most Wanted,” “Blue Bloods,” and “Law & Order: SVU.”

Scenic design and Promotional Artwork is by Mark Perry.

“Storm Still” will be performed October 1–11 at Bridge Street Theatre, located at 44 West Bridge Street in Catskill. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7pm and Sundays at 2pm.

Tickets are $30 for adults and $25 for students. Tickets and additional information are available at bridgest.org/storm-still/.