African-American Shakespeare Company Debuts An Updated MACBETH At The Taube Atrium This July

The African-American Shakespeare Company will bring a bold, updated, modern-verse version of Macbeth to the Taube Atrium Theater in San Francisco for a series of six performances only. The adaptation-which will feature a more potent and alluring trio of witches than usually seen-is by playwright Migdalia Cruz, and was originally written for the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's Play On series. This is its West Coast debut.

"Macbeth has always been my favorite Shakespeare play," says Cruz. "I was attracted to the story of a good man becoming an ambitious man becoming a monster. I was intrigued by Lady Macbeth, whose ambition at first surpasses her husband's, but then transforms into guilt and madness under the weight of her betrayal of King Duncan. Also, I wanted to explore the witches, which have never seemed like old crones to me but rather strong, psychic beings with overwhelming sexual attraction-and that's why men are so afraid of them. As a woman of color, I wanted to make a place in the Shakespeare canon for my sisters, and the sisters that seemed most underexplored were the witches."

This is the first time the company has presented Macbeth in over a decade, and it is also the first under Callender's watch. "Although Shakespeare's shortest play, it is notorious for being difficult to produce. With its witches, magic, severed heads, blood, fights, floating dagger, not to mention the dreaded "curse", it has deserved its mentions over the years. But it's also Shakespeare's most poetic play, in my opinion, so we will tackle this head on with clarity, vision and the respect for all that comes with it. It is modern and will feature a cast of 10 versatile ensemble players bringing to vivid life the alluring witches, ambitious King and Queen, and an unsuspecting Duncan that Migdalia Cruz has given us with this adapation.

Macbeth by William Shakespeare in a modern verse translation by Migdalia Cruz was commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Bill Rauch and Executive Director Cynthia Rider as part of Play on! 36 playwrights translate Shakespeare, funded by a generous grant from the Hitz Foundation

Tickets: $35.00 www.african-americanshakes.org.