2027 Season Announcement

HUDSON VALLEY SHAKESPEARE ANNOUNCES SUMMER 2027 SEASON

JUNE 2 – OCTOBER 3, 2027

FEATURING

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

DIRECTED BY RYAN QUINN

JUNE 2 – SEPTEMBER 25

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

Forty years ago, Hudson Valley Shakespeare began with a dream. Now the magic returns as we revisit Shakespeare’s most enchanting, romantic comedy, and very first play we produced.

As the longest day of the year gives way to a midsummer night, the boundaries between reality and fantasy begin to blur. Deep in an enchanted forest, four young lovers lose their way, a troupe of amateur actors stumbles into the supernatural, and a mischievous fairy named Puck turns love upside down. Under the spell of the fairy king and queen, Oberon and Titania, hearts are stolen, affections are misplaced, and nothing, or no one, is quite as they seem.

Bursting with romance, laughter, and glorious mischief, A Midsummer Night's Dream is a joyful reminder that love is messy, maddening, and rarely follows the rules. But beneath the moonlight, the most wondrous transformations may await those brave enough to surrender to the unexpected.

THE CHERRY TORTURED

OR THE PARABLE OF THE GREAT UNSTICKING

A NEW PLAY BY AARON POSNER

BASED ON AN OLD PLAY BY ANTON CHEKHOV

DIRECTED BY HVS ARTISTIC DIRECTOR DAVIS MCCALLUM

JUNE 4 – JULY 31

"We don’t need ways out. We need ways in. Further in…
Further Into Life. That’s where we need to go."

After five years away, Miss Lulu is coming home. The ancestral home she remembers is crumbling, but the family drama is right where she left it. As old grudges resurface, fresh calamities loom, and the future of their beloved family estate teeters on the brink of change, one question remains: how do you move forward when everything you love is on the line?

By transporting the story from 19th-century Russia to today’s Hudson Valley, award-winning playwright Aaron Posner (Stupid Fucking Bird, Life Sucks) brings Chekhov’s final masterpiece, The Cherry Orchard, vividly into the present, preserving its complicated characters and emotional depth while infusing it with his signature wicked wit and irreverence. The result is a comedy as wonderfully cheeky as it is achingly moving, exploring what it means to hold on, let go, and find the courage to begin again.

SUNDAY IN THE PARK WITH GEORGE

MUSIC AND LYRICS BY STEPHEN SONDHEIM

BOOK BY JAMES LAPINE

DIRECTED BY AMANDA DEHNERT

JUNE 6 – SEPTEMBER 4

Originally Directed on Broadway by James Lapine
Orchestrations by Michael Starobin
Originally Produced on Broadway by The Shubert Organization and Emanuel Azenberg
By arrangement with Playwrights Horizon, Inc. New York City which produced the original production of "Sunday in The Park With George" in 1983.

“Anything you do, let it come from you. Then it will be new.”

Great art can capture a moment forever. But sometimes, in trying to create something that lasts, we lose sight of the people and moments that matter most.

Inspired by Georges Seurat’s iconic painting A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, the story begins in 1880s Paris, with a young painter in pursuit of perfection to complete his masterpiece. As the figures in the park slowly come to life on his canvas, his obsessive drive to “finish the hat” threatens his relationship with Dot, the woman he loves. A century later, his great-grandson, struggling to find his own artistic voice, discovers that sometimes to create something new, he must first understand what came before.

Art and landscape share the same frame in this new production of Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine’s Pulitzer Prize-winning musical. Set against the beauty of the Hudson Highlands, Sunday in the Park with George is a humorous and deeply human celebration of art, love, and the choices that shape our lives. With Sondheim’s soaring score and brilliantly perceptive lyrics, this is as much about the art of living as it is about the art of creating.

Sunday in the Park with George is presented through special arrangement with Music Theater International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are supplied by MTI.
www.mtishows.com

MACBETH

“Stars, hide your fires;
Let not light see my black and deep desires.”

A prophecy. A promise of greatness. A crown within reach. When three witches foretell Macbeth's rise to the Scottish throne, ambition becomes obsession. Spurred on by his wife, he murders his king and claims the crown. But one act of betrayal unleashes a deadly chain of consequences. As guilt gives way to paranoia and suspicion turns to slaughter, Macbeth discovers that seizing control is one thing. Keeping it is another.

Jenn Thompson (Les Misérables) returns to direct one of Shakespeare's best-known tragedies. Set against the dramatic landscape of the Hudson Highlands, this spine-tingling thriller crackles with supernatural intrigue as the seductive promise of power sends Macbeth careening towards his own undoing, plunging an entire kingdom into violence and chaos in his wake.