CAESAR, A Contemporary Shakespeare Adaptation, Comes to Philadelphia Theatre Company
Caesar reimagines Shakespeare’s political tragedy as a 90-minute contemporary thriller with a four-actor ensemble.
Philadelphia Theatre Company (PTC) will present Caesar, a new adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, February 6-22, 2026, at the Suzanne Roberts Theatre (480 S. Broad Street).
Adapted by Tyler Dobrowsky, PTC Co-Artistic Director, directed by Morgan Green, Co-Artistic Director of the Wilma Theater, and choreographed by Jungwoong Kim, Caesar reimagines Shakespeare’s political tragedy as a 90-minute contemporary thriller with a four-actor ensemble. Using Shakespeare’s original language alongside modern video and sound design, the production explores the dangerous intersection of power, performance, and political violence.
“Julius Caesar is a play I’ve loved for a long time because of its dual nature,” said Dobrowsky. “It’s about ambition and the folly of ambition, about lofty ideals of democracy and the messy, human relationships underneath. I wanted to create a version that keeps Shakespeare’s extraordinary language but trims the story to its most urgent core, so that audiences experience it as a true political thriller: fast, clear, deeply emotional, and, frankly, a little too relevant to the world we’re living in right now.
“Whether you’ve studied Shakespeare for years or this is your very first time, we want audiences, especially young people, to feel how alive this story still is: thrilling and absolutely of the moment.”
In this sharply focused version, the story of Julius Caesar’s assassination and its aftermath unfolds in a world that bears an uncanny resemblance to our own: social media frenzies, climate disasters, and citizenry caught between fear and fatigue. When the principled senator Brutus joins a conspiracy to murder Caesar in the name of liberty, the assassination sets off a chain reaction that plunges Rome into chaos and civil war, raising urgent questions about what we risk, and whom we trust, in the name of “saving” democracy.
Dobrowsky’s adaptation streamlines Shakespeare’s sprawling cast into four multi-role performers, concentrating on the key relationships at the center of the story: Brutus and Cassius, and Caesar and Marc Antony. The production highlights how politicians craft “optics,” deploy rhetoric, and manipulate public perception, reflecting a media-driven political culture in which every speech is a performance and every action is instantly broadcast, debated, and distorted.
Director Morgan Green, known to Philadelphia audiences for her inventive, design-forward work, approaches Caesar as both a high-stakes character study and a cinematic live event, layering bold visual
storytelling, choreography, and an intricate video landscape. An Obie Award-winning theater and film director, Green’s recent work includes Branden Jacobs-Jenkins’ The Comeuppance, named the #1 play of 2024 by The Washington Post, and a recipient of Barrymore Awards for Best Play and Best Ensemble, as well as Caitlin Saylor Stephens’s Five Models in Ruins, 1981 at LCT3 at Lincoln Center Theater.
“It’s a highly political play, but it’s also deeply personal,” said Green. “I’m fascinated by how power in this story comes down to confidence, showmanship, and the ability to command a crowd. You get some of the most beautiful speeches ever written and then, ultimately, words fail, and it all dissolves into visceral, animal combat. The journey from rhetoric to raw violence is where this production lives.”
Green’s staging leans into Shakespeare’s long tradition of historical “doubling”: he, an Elizabethan writer looking at ancient Rome, and now this version is reinterpreted through a contemporary American lens. Set within a male-dominated political world examined through a distinctly contemporary gaze, the production explores intimacy, trust, and machismo as forces that both bind and undo the men at the center of the story.
Movement and physical storytelling play a central role in Caesar. Choreography and movement direction by Jungwoong Kim will shape an increasingly expressionistic landscape, culminating in a final sequence that plunges the audience into the chaos of civil war, offering an explosive counterpoint to the eloquent speeches that precede it.
Throughout the play, an immersive media design, incorporating original video content, location shooting around Philadelphia, and found-footage-inspired imagery, will help audiences track who’s who, who’s on which side, and how information ricochets through a restless public. The screens become their own kind of chorus: a reminder that in the modern imagination, politics is always already a show.
The Philadelphia-based four-actor ensemble features Matteo Scammell (Detroit, Sweat, Hand to God, Empathitrax, two-time Barrymore Award-winner) as Brutus, Jaime Maseda (two-time Barrymore Award nominee) in his PTC debut as Marc Antony, J Hernandez (Sweat, Everything Is Wonderful) as Cassius, and PTC newcomer Jude Sandy (Broadway’s War Horse) as Caesar.
The creative team includes Krit Robinson and Kate Campbell (Scenic Co-Design), Maiko Matsushima (Costume Design), Christopher Ash (Lighting and Projections Design), Jordan McCree (Sound Designer), Eli Lynn (Fight Choreographer), and Matthew Ryan Melchior (Stage Manager).
As part of its commitment to education and Philadelphia’s young people, PTC will present two student matinees of Caesar at 10:30 AM on Thursday, February 12, and Thursday, February 19. For more information about PTC’s education programs, visit the PTC website or email education@philatheatreco.org.
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