Willow Geer News

Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum will celebrate its 50th Anniversary in high style with a summer-long season of theater, music, performance and other festivities at its spectacular, one-of-a-kind outdoor venue in Topanga.

Will Geer’s Theatricum presents the world premiere of the “all new” revival of Oscar-winning playwright Ernest Thompson’s The West Side Waltz beginning June 25, 2022. Mary Jo DuPrey directs the cast of Ellen Geer, Melora Marshall, Willow Geer, Miguel Pérez and Charles Lin. I was most fortunate to have the playwright make some time to answer my queries.

Forty-one years after its premiere at the Ahmanson Theatre, Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum will present the world premiere of an “all new” revival of The West Side Waltz by Academy Award-winning writer Ernest Thompson (On Golden Pond).

Fans of Shakespeare, alfresco theater, old time rock’n roll and just plain fun— pack a picnic and head up to the spectacular, one-of-a-kind outdoor venue at Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum, where the 2022 repertory season, sponsored by the S. Mark Taper Foundation, opens with two buoyant comedies.

Summer is on the horizon, and Will Geer’s Theatricum Botanicum is ready to announce a mix of classical theater, new work and music set to take place at its spectacular, one-of-a-kind outdoor amphitheatre in Topanga.

Actress, Willow Geer discusses the character she plays in JULIUS CAESAR at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum. Enjoy!

'A lean an hungry look,' Julius Caesar’s oft-quoted descriptor for Cassius, is an apt metaphor for the season-opening production of JULIUS CAESAR at the Will Geer Theatricum Botanicum, and not always in a good way. The leanness box is dutifully checked, but director Ellen Geer’s production could certainly be hungrier and more thought out.

Two beloved plays by William Shakespeare are set to welcome audiences back to the spectacular outdoor venue at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum this summer.

The Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle has announced the nominees for theatrical excellence for the year 2019. This year they are forgoing their annual event ceremony and will instead post the award recipients online in the upcoming weeks: 

Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum has announced its annual summer line-up of theater, music and performance in its unique and stunning outdoor setting in Topanga.

William Shakespeare's rollicking and ever-popular comedy of mistaken identity, TWELFTH NIGHT, brings its magical combination of mischief, madness and romance into the outdoor amphitheater at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum this summer where it plays in rep through September 28. Written in 1601 and first seen in the Inns of Court shortly after Christmas (hence, the title), the holiday was celebrated as a festival during which everything was made delightfully topsy-turvy, much like the world of the play's Illyria. And you could not ask for a more ideal cast of characters to bring The Bard's non-stop, high energy hijinks to life.

I am a huge fan of Our Town by Thornton Wilder. It is literary genius in its storytelling of the lifespan of two families in Grovers Corners, New Hampshire It's almost as if Wilder turned Our Town upside down, shook it a few times in snowglobe fashion and created The Skin of Our Teeth. It's also a family drama but it covers more than one lifespan, as it combs a five thousand year period from the Ice Age to the 20th century in Excelsior and Atlantic City, New Jersey. The Antrobus family is bound throughout: the father (Mark Lewis), the mother (Melora Marshall) and their two children Gladys (Gabrielle Beauvais) and Henry (William Holbrook) and their maid Sabina (Willow Geer). Their lives change through time, and plotwise, there is always a crisis they are exposed to. What is mos effective to witness is how they manage to pull through each obstacle...and survive.

The Skin of Our Teeth — The story of humankind told through the lives of the Antrobus family. Set in 20th century New Jersey and the Ice Age, Thornton Wilder's Pulitzer Prize-winning play is a whirlwind of modernity and antiquity.

Summer is the best time of year to get out and see a Shakespeare play, especially in Southern California. Whether it's under the stars, staged in a unique performance space, or revived in a traditional theater, you can't go wrong when it comes to the world's greatest writer. Here's what we've currently got on our radar. Go see a show!

The Skin of Our Teeth, the Pulitzer Prize-winning tribute to the indestructibility of the human race by Thornton Wilder, opens on the beautiful outdoor stage at Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum on Saturday,July 13, where performances continue through Sept. 29. 

Actor Will Holbrook made a big splash as Romeo in Romeo and Juliet when he first arrived in Los Angeles in 2016 at the Archway Theatre Co. The grandson of Hal Holbrook, Will is ambitious with two plays scheduled to perform this summer and the presentation of his new production company dedicated to film. In our conversation, Will talks with candor and enthusiasm about his plans for this summer and beyond.

Mischief, madness and romance are in the air this summer when Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum presents William Shakespeare's rollicking comedy, Twelfth Night, in its magical, outdoor Topanga amphitheater. Twelfth Night opens Theatricum's summer repertory season onSaturday, June 1 at 8 p.m., where performances will continue through Sept. 28.

Mischief, madness and romance are in the air this summer when Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum presents William Shakespeare's rollicking comedy, Twelfth Night, in its magical, outdoor Topanga amphitheater. Twelfth Night opens Theatricum's summer repertory season on Saturday, June 1 at 8 p.m., where performances will continue through Sept. 28.

 A mystery of hidden pasts, lost loves and false identities in a world where living things cannot grow. Members of the Geer family star in a revival ofThe Chalk Garden by Enid Bagnold, a unique comedy that blends witty humor with insightful truths. Susan Angelo directs Bagnold's captivating psychological chamber piece for a June 30 opening at Theatricum Botanicum's outdoor amphitheater in Topanga.

A parable of mass hysteria that draws a chilling parallel between the Salem witch hunts of 1692 and McCarthyism, which gripped America in the 1950s, The Crucible by Arthur Miller remains eerily timely in today's climate of fake news. Will Geer's Theatricum Botanicum, its own history firmly rooted in the McCarthy-era Hollywood blacklist - when actor Will Geer and his wife, Herta Ware, created the theater as a haven for blacklisted actors - opens a new production of Miller's modern classic onJune 30. Theatricum artistic director Ellen Geer, Will's daughter, is at the helm, with family members Thad Geer,Willow Geer and Melora Marshall featured in the cast.