with readings, explorations and productions of Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, The Winter's Tale, A Midsummer Night's Dream, and the 2017 Tour: Julius Caesar
For in this sleep of death what dreams may come...
                                                                                                   -Hamlet


Season offerings
Richard III
My horse, my horse, my kingdom for a horse!
Richard III lived a sort of nightmare and caused nightmares for all who dared cross him. His rise to power was predicated on one death after another...most of which Shakespeare points to Richard orchestrating. Whether you find sympathy in the hand life dealt him, admiration in his steadfast climb or sheer horror in his actions, this history is far from a lesson filled with dates and is much more a lesson in how not to be a king.
Hamlet
Perhaps the most iconic Shakespeare play the brooding Dane meets his audience in the midst of the greatest nightmare one can imagine: his mother remarried to his uncle and a ghost of his father seeking revenge. Audience struggles with Hamlet throughout the play as he wrestles with how to act and react to the events, contemplating how to be a good son to both father and mother and how to wrestle with all the demons that he cannot escape.
Julius Caesar
Another historical tale that looks at the assassination of Julius Caesar is colored by soothsayers and ghosts. The ominous Ides of March, a nightmare for Caesar, is really only the beginning of this story. Following his death the fight to power is fought first with words and then with blood, until all the conspirators against Caesar have fallen and a triumvirate, far more corrupt than Caesar's reign would seem to have been, takes its place.
A Midsummer Night's Dream
What is more of a daydream than A Midsummer Night's Dream. Fairy folk mingling with runaway lovers, royal fighting and men turning into donkeys seem to be the rule rather than the acceptions.
Macbeth
The Scottish general Macbeth receives a prophecy from a trio of witches that one day he will be King. His ambitious wife spurs him to action and into a world racked with nightmares. Macbeth murders King Duncan, accuses the King's sons of the action and then takes the throne for himself. The guilt and paranoia that follow are met by his wife with anger, then guilt, then madness.
The Winter's Tale
​Leontes had a wife and a child and a friendship in his kingdom of Sicilia. Due to the green eye of jealousy he manages to destroy them all. As his life crashes around him Shakespeare jumps 15 years into the future to a pastural kingdom miles away. Life is a bit day-dreamy in Bohemia's country until the rigors and court and the past catches up to characters that were all but in the dark to the nightmare Leontes created. When Leontes friends realize they must return to Sicilia to clear up confusion they are able to clear Leontes nightmares as well with the most daydream inspired endings as statues come to life and royalty are allowed to live happily ever after.

A Season of What if...

a note from the Artistic Director

​The Magic “What If”

It’s probably the thing that runs through my head the most “what if.” And not when preparing for a role or prepping a production - we’re talking daily life. “WHAT IF?”

  • what if I had a million dollars
  • what if that boy smiles at me​
  • what if we get married
  • what if I were president
  • what if there were no president
  • what if space travel was an everyday thing
  • what if I hadn’t eaten that last piece of pizza
  • what if I could fly

The list is endless.

I wonder if others share my constant questioning…which is of course just a variation of a “what if.”

And yet, I never think of myself as a scientist. I don’t think I ask enough questions. Little did I know back in 7th grade as I Mooned over my Earth Science teacher, upset that I wasn’t enough of a scientist to impress this older man with my own scientific (albeit tween) brain, that actually it was there all along.

In theater “what if” is far from a new concept. It is quite traditional. It is Konstantin Stanislavsky. Again though I tend not to put my daydreams in practice formally when I act - or didn't for a long time.

But what after all is theater if not one giant daydream come to life. A daydream we all have together. The production team starts asking what if long before curtain. The playwright has been asking what if through years of re-writes. The actors ask what if (whether they - like my earlier acting self - know it or not) from the second they start preparing for the audition…

…and the audience…they are asking what if too
  • What if for the next 2(ish) hours my life and troubles don’t exist.
  • What if these people onstage in front of me are not who they actually are, but are who they claim to be
  • What if the story being told is reality
  • And what if I get to join this story as a voyeur, a perfectly acceptable, not at all creepy, voyeur.

​It is with this WHAT IF, a question found in daydreams and nightmares that Stone Soup Shakespeare is reimagining this year’s tour of Julius Caesar. We’ve been given a goldmine of words, a story that blurs truth and fiction, characters that existed, it is enough to cry out “O, for a muse of fire.” We have been given a gift and now we all must ask WHAT IF.

We start with our season, where we encourage everyone to ask “what if” as often as possible. We are conducting open workshops to encourage actors to flex their muscles and audience members to be bold. We of course are holding onto our reading series as we look at shows that maximize the importance of asking WHAT IF in their dreamlike qualities. We will begin to explore Hamlet in anticipation of our 10th Anniversary Tour, this year focusing on the nightmare of waking up to find your father dead, your mother remarried and a ghost requesting revenge.

…and then…then we tackle Caesar. A play Sophomore English students all wade, trudge, coast, soar, dance and stab through. A play that we remember as ending on the Ides of March with Caesar’s death, but yet it holds two more acts.

We are excited to see where our questioning takes us. We are excited to see what this next year holds. The year of 2016 that held so many ups and downs will be done and we will have a whole new 365 days to do it all again. And then there’s sports. The Cubs won the World Series! A curse, 108 years, hopes, dreams, beer, skill, heart…if that story has been written, if that is the reality we now live in, if that is possible, well, we can truly rewrite the book on everything.

While we rewrite, rearrange and reimagine Shakespeare we ask only that you occasionally remember to ask the question WHAT IF with us, with other theater, with music, with art and with your everyday because really...

WHAT IF.

-Julia Stemper