CAESAR & CLEOPATRA to be Presented at Washington Stage Guild

The Washington Stage Guild will bring its 40th Season to a close with a new, slimmed down adaptation of Caesar & Cleopatra, a rarely produced play by George Bernard Shaw, adapted and directed by Artistic Director/Founding Company Member Bill Largess. The production features 4-time Helen Hayes Award nominee Craig Wallace (Ford's Theatre's A Christmas Carol, Shakespeare Theatre's Lear and Our Town) as Caesar and Hannah Taylor (Stage Guild's Faithless, 1st Stage's Birthday Candles) as Cleopatra.

Performances begin April 9 – 11 with four Pay-What-You-Can previews and run until May 3, 2026 at the Washington Stage Guild's home, The Undercroft Theatre in the Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Avenue, NW. 

ABOUT THE PLAY:

Caesar and Cleopatra come to Stage Guild for the first time!

Under an Egyptian moon, the aging Julius Caesar meets teenage Cleopatra by chance one night. With turmoil afoot as Cleopatra and her younger brother vie for the throne, Caesar helps the young queen grow into a great ruler favoring wisdom, honor, and clemency. With the palace under siege by insurgents, Caesar might not be able to keep the country together or even escape alive -- let alone manage the headstrong Cleopatra. DC's premiere producer of Shaw stages this slimmed down version (by artistic director Bill Largess), a riveting exploration of power, politics, vengeance, and mercy.

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT

Playwright George Bernard Shaw (1856 – 1950), known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, polemicist and political activist. His influence on Western theatre, culture and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays. With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.