Esther Williamson

WP Theater has revealed the full casts and teams for the fifth biennial Pipeline Festival. See full programming and learn how to purchase tickets.

The Shakespeare Project of Chicago will resume Shakespeare theatrical readings at the Newberry Library in Chicago with TIMON OF ATHENS, in a free performance March 9.

Discover Urban Stages' production of THE MAKING OF A GREAT MOMENT, written by Peter Sinn Nachtrieb and directed by James Barry. Join in on the special post-show conversations and engage with the play's themes. Don't miss this opportunity starting October 11.

Award-winning Off-Broadway theater Urban Stages will produce Peter Sinn Nachtrieb's play The Making of a Great Moment, directed by James Barry, Chester Theater Company's Co-Producing Artistic Director.  Learn more about the production here!

Bedlam's DO MORE: NEW PLAYS readings series returns for its third year with five thrilling new plays. All performances will take place at Houghton Hall Arts, 22 East 30th Street.

Recently appointed Co-Producing Artistic Directors James Barry and Tara Franklin have announced the full casting for Chester Theatre Company’s 2023 season, the first under their direction. 

Taffety Punk returns to the stage in full force with their production of Our Black Death: Plagues, Turnips, and Other Romantic Gestures, directed by Marcus Kyd is all at once hilarious, shocking, and bittersweet in its exploration of love during a plague.

Taffety Punk, the insurrectionist yet classically trained company now in its 15th year does what it does best in a pair of striking Greek adaptations by Anne Carson, presented in one invigorating sitting.

Few and far between are the times that we reviewers have a perfect night in the theater. Generally, we can find something to complain about in any given production. It could be we love the performances, but not the script or vice versa.

Taffety Punk Theatre Company's Bootleg Shakespeare production HENRY VI, PART 3 is performance without a net - exciting, dangerous, riveting, and raw. Bootleg Shakespeare isn't designed to be polished or perfect, it's designed to be fresh and immediate. And it delivered. What's more amazing? The actors arrived at 10:00 am Monday with roles assigned and lines memorized. That's it. Working together under the direction of Taffety Punk Artistic Director Marcus Kyd, over the next few hours the 32 actors DIY'ed the production and were on stage in front of an audience at 7:30 pm. There were minimal props, lights, and costumes-but the red and white paper lapel flowers told us exactly what we needed to know when every epic battle scene and every word of Shakespeare's text was performed.

Sara Holdren will direct a staged reading of Jane Austen's Persuasion, adapted for the theatre by emerging playwright Sarah Rose Kearns, on Monday, April 9th at 7 o'clock at The Players in New York City, 16 Gramercy Park South. This performance will feature Jack Halpin, Marc LeVasseur, Patricia McNamara, Chris Mixon, Daniel Reece, Amanda Jill Robinson (also acting as music director), Maggie Wetzel, Esther Williamson, and Jenna Zhu.

Performances begin this week for Henry IV, the final production of the Opera House Arts summer 2017 theatre season.

By now the world is used to inhumane aberrations like ten-year wars. But back when Homer wrote his epic poem, it was still something to rage about, as he did about the siege of Troy by the Greeks in the Trojan War.

Under the direction of Joel David Santner (who will shortly be moving to California for film school, a great loss to the DC area) the company has proven yet again that when viewed with fresh eyes, the early First Quarto version of 'Hamlet' is a limitless source of inspiration for artists and audiences alike.  Although the company pulls its aesthetic punches by inviting a few guys to join the cast (including Marcus Kyd in the title role), the performance is of a dependable, high quality that makes this a rare, intimate view of the Bard's work.

Taffety Punk's current production of The Tempest demonstrates how Shakespeare's work is infinitely elastic in terms of creativity and casting. Riot Grrrls, a faction of Taffety Punk Theatre Company dedicated to all-female productions of the Bard's works, has come up with a low-tech, low-cost, intimate staging that is as finely tuned as anything you'd pay big bucks for uptown.

It is the stuff of great drama when people with incredible charm and talent behave like monsters: idealists with a clear vision of the future, leaving human wreckage in their wake. For fans of English literature who are fascinated by Shelley, Byron and the women who devoted themselves to their careers, 'Bloody Poetry' should be a pure delight.

Entertaining and well-acted, this one is worth your time. Tickets are only $15. There's no reason not to go.

This show is worth a look for the adventurous DC theatregoer. One has to admire Taffety Punk's ambition.

Taffety Punk Theatre Company presents Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare, adapted and directed by Michelle Shupe and choreographed by company member Erin Mitchell, featuring company members Tonya Beckman, Daniel Crane, Daniel Flint, Kimberly Gilbert, and Esther Williamson. The production plays Capitol Hill Arts Workshop, 545 7th Street SE, Washington, DC, now through February 23, 2013. BroadwayWorld has a first look at the cast in action below!

In a town where there seems to be a Shakespeare play going on nearly every month, it's easy to get lost in the shuffle. Taffety dares to be different and it pays off.