By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer
It’s the return of the “Mac.”
Local director Khimberly Marshall continues her Shakespearean Macbeth Project at Celebration Arts, the area’s premier Black theater company. In a return to in-person productions, Marshall will present “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” March 25-April 10.
She’s calling it a “hyper-stylized dramatic stage reading.”
“Two couples fight for their right to love whom they choose. The lovers get pulled into a world of Afro Futuristic funk fantasy by a band of mischievous elemental spirits…
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is an enchanting comedy filled with magical sensuality,” Marshall shares.
Marshall started bringing “the classics” to Celebration Arts in 2019. The production of “MacBeth” was, and is, part of a larger, multi-year, multicultural vision to “co-build and produce a truly unique and vastly different experience” that stretches all that Shakespearean stage plays can be.
The COVID-19 pandemic closed down theaters throughout the region and across the county, forcing creatives like Marshall to come up with alternative ways to stage their productions and get them in front of audiences. Marshall presented “Romeo and Mother Juliet,” her modern take on the age-old tale of the Montegues and the Capulets, online. “30 Minute Shakespeare: Midsummer” was also shown virtually in July 2020 as a fundraiser for Celebration Arts, which had taken a huge financial hit due to COVID-19 and not being able to garner ticket sales. Marshall also presented her take on King Lear in person at the Chautauqua Playhouse in Carmichael this past fall.
The cast of “The MacBeth Project’s Midsummer Night’s Dream” includes some repeat project players like KT Masala and Conrad Crump, as well as Rhonda Anderson, Kenneth Brown, Diana Cossey, Derek Dozier, Mona Fenner, Julian A. Jefferson, Tasha Nicole King, Vincent Kobelt, William Mininfield, Naimah Moon, Isha Muthe, Naomi Randle-Ludd, and Brandon Rubin.
Celebration Arts is located 2727 B Street. Showtime is at 8:00 p.m. Thursday-Saturdays and 2:00 p.m. on Sundays. Tickets are $15. For more information, visit www.themacbethproject.com or to purchase tickets, visit https://celebration.booktix.com/