Actors' Theatre Announces 2020 Season ROYALS

Actors' Theatre of Columbus (ATC) is excited to announce its upcoming 2020 performance series, "Royals" - a look at the sovereignty and subversion of the ruling class and social elite.

ATC's summer season features two king-sized plays of Shakespearean proportions including King Lear (May 21 - June 14) and Queen Margaret (July 16 - August 9), plus Simon Levy's adaptation of F. Scott Fitgerald's The Great Gatsby (June 18 - July 12), and William Congreve's The Way of the World (August 13 - September 6).

KING LEAR (Directed by Jennifer Feather Youngblood) - A wrenching story of justice, perception, and madness, King Lear has fascinated audiences for more than 400 years, and stands as Shakespeare's most towering achievement. The Bard's 1605 retelling of the pre-Roman legend Leir of Britain, is a classic and well-known story of a short-sighted, proud monarch who, in seeking to avoid future strife, ultimately destroys the legacy he was hoping to preserve.

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD'S THE GREAT GATSBY (Adapted for the stage by Simon Levy, Directed by Adam Simon) - First published in 1925, F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is considered by many to be the greatest American novel. This adaptation by Simon Levy, the only play version licensed by the Fitzgerald estate, is an exceptional representation of the novel's exploration of 1920's decadence and idealism. Set in 1922 Long Island, Gatsby continues to serve as a challenge to the myth of the American Dream.

QUEEN MARGARET (Adapted by Jeanie O'Hare, Directed by Philip J. Hickman) - Queen Margaret by William Shakespeare and Jeanie O'Hare premiered in England in 2018. O'Hare edited Shakespeare's history cycle plays to focus on the story of Queen Margaret. The play is a vibrant examination of one of history's most influential women told with wit, power, and emotion. The story unfolds as Margaret grows from a young queen bound by the constraints of tradition to the ruling force in the War of the Roses, protecting her son in a chaotic time of political strife and providing a future for her nation.

THE WAY OF THE WORLD (Directed by Mark Mann) - Largely considered the greatest of the Restoration Comedies, The Way of the World sets off a pair of lovers against a gaggle of scheming and imaginatively-named characters, including the duplicitous and lusty Lady Wishfort, and the villainous, morality-free Fainall. It takes a grand dose of plotting and outright blackmail to give Mirabell and Millafort a happy ending - or at least the ending they desire. This scathing, hilarious satire, which closes out our 2020 season, uncovers the over-the-top-and under the table-schemes of the idle upper-class.

In its continued mission to provide theatre beyond Schiller Park, Actors' Theatre will feature an expanded season for the second year in a row, including an early kickoff to 2020 with Liz Duffy Adams' Or, directed by Rowan Winterwood, January 10-26 at MadLab Theatre. In this door-slamming Restoration-Era-style farce, former spy Aphra Behn tries to pen her first play - but with interruptions from a flirty actress, the king himself, and a mysterious associate from her past, Aphra finds herself torn between love for her paramours, her country, and her craft.

Tickets for Or, are $25 in advance and available at www.theactorstheatre.org, or "Pay What You Will" at the door. Outdoor summer shows are free and open to the public, though donations are encouraged and vital to the continued success of Actors' Theatre. Memberships with Actors' Theatre are also available by visiting www.theactorstheatre.org/membership/.

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