Photo Flash: First Look - Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's THE TEMPEST, Now Playing Through 6/22

The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey's 52nd Season opens with The Tempest, Shakespeare's final great work. Performances continue through June 22nd at the F.M. Kirby Shakespeare Theatre, 36 Madison Ave. (at Lancaster Road) in Madison. Individual tickets are now on sale and can be purchased by calling the Box Office at 973-408-5600 or by visiting www.ShakespeareNJ.org. Performances are Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Sundays at 7:30 p.m.; Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m.; and Saturdays and Sundays at 2 p.m. Individual tickets range from $15 to $75.

"I am thrilled to open the season with The Tempest which has not appeared on the Main Stage in over ten years. A passionate, visceral, fierce, and magical play-The Tempest contains some of the worlds most glorious poetry," says Artistic Director Bonnie J. Monte.

As one of Shakespeare's late romances, The Tempest, while not technically his last play, is considered the Bard's farewell masterpiece. The character of Prospero, the exiled Duke turned powerful magician, appears semi-autobiographical-Shakespeare's aging alter-ego who must also bid farewell to his "art."

The play opens in the midst of a raging storm, conjured by the magician Prospero to wreck a passing ship. The ship carries the conspirators who deposed Prospero twelve years earlier, forcing him from Milan with his infant daughter Miranda. Set adrift at sea, father and daughter came to live on the faraway island, on which the play takes place, inhabited by the elemental spirit Ariel and the feral Caliban. When the shipwrecked men come to shore, worlds collide as clowning drunkards meet the enslaved monster Caliban, handsome Prince Ferdinand encounters the lovely Miranda, and Prospero faces his past and his enemies.

Photos by Jerry Dalia, The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey