EVENTS

Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

August 1, 3, 5, 7, 9
The Houston Shakespeare Festival

A profound work about misguided ambitions that seems torn out of
today's headlines. Shakespeare's depiction of the vast gulf that lies
between private life and personal ambition is at the center of this
remarkable play.

Cymbeline

by William Shakespeare

August 2, 6, 8, 10
The Houston Shakespeare Festival

A great fairy tale for adults where themes of jealousy, fidelity,
simplicity, and sophistication are all played out with Shakespeare's
customary genius. As noted director Patrick Tucker stated, "It is a
play for our time."

Present Laughter

by Noel Coward

May 10-June 22
Main Street Theater

Joel Sandel stars as Garry Essendine, an aging matinee idol teetering reluctantly towards middle age but everyone, both male and female, is infatuated with him. Flamboyant and witty, wearing a silk dressing gown and equipped with the requisite cocktail, his life is one long performance in which he can never be himself. About to set off on an extended tour of Africa , Essendine is visited by practicallyeveryone he knows, including his ex-wife/manager, lawyer, secretary, butler, business partners, an admiring young playwright and a recent one-night stand. An acknowledged self-portrait of the playwright himself, PRESENT LAUGHTER is a marvelously comic exaggeration of the life that whirled around Coward in his heyday.

Translations

by Brian Friel

February 23-March 23
Main Street Theater

The action takes place in late August 1833 at a hedge-school in the
townland of Baile Beag, an Irish speaking community in County
Donegal. In a nearby field camps a recently arrived detachment of the
Royal Engineers, making the first Ordnance Survey. For the purposes
of cartography, the local Gaelic place names have to be recorded and
rendered into English. In examining the effects of this operation on
the lives of a small group, Brian Freel skillfully reveals the
far-reaching personal and cultural effects of an action which is at
first sight purely administrative.