MACBETH

More than just a tale of “vaulting ambition”, Mortal Folly’s Macbeth is not so much a history as a deeply affecting morality tale, an emotional study of humanity risking everything in the name of love and honor, and gravely suffering the consequences. Harte-DeCoux’s adaptation of the Folio takes advantage of Macbeth's relative brevity to add moments of non-verbal storytelling throughout the play, enriching the story with contextual details and giving enlightening new perspective to some of theatre’s most well-known and frequently-performed roles.  Set in a mythical Dark Age of feudal lords and long swords, Mortal Folly’s take on this story of sorrow, blood, and destiny explores the balance between Fate and Free Will, and offers a personal, passionate and cinematic take on one of the Bard’s greatest tragedies.

Macbeth features Mark August, Alyssa Borg, Erik Cheski, Sam Eggers, David A Ellis*, Josey Nicole Housley*, Bryant Martin*, Matthew Rini, John Short, Liz Sklar*, Hannah Sloat*, Brandon Smith, Melanie Stroh, and Robert Lee Taylor*.

 *Appearing courtesy of Actor’s Equity Association

Like Mortal Folly’s highly successful A Midsummer Night’s Dream (June 2010 at The Richmond Shepard Theatre), Macbeth will feature music composed specifically for the production by Musical Director Amanda Gookin and spectacular fights choreographed by resident Fight Director Nathan DeCoux.  New to Macbeth is an arsenal of hand-crafted weapons and armor provided by Gotham Armory, who recently crafted the weapons for the hit Broadway show Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson.  The show’s assistant director and character movement expert is Stacee Mandeville.

Mortal Folly Theatre exists to provide a training ground for actors looking to further their experience in Classical Theatre. As a cellist cannot improvise a concerto, so we believe that actors cannot fully realize themselves as storytellers through intuition alone; they must embrace the process - the work - as whole-heartedly as the performance. Honing their technique with the instrument - in an actor's case, themselves - is absolutely essential, and can only be achieved through both dedication and passion for the material. We aspire to create an educational experience where Classical texts are accessible, inspiring, and provocative, and the quality of performance is commensurate with the level of commitment.  Mortal Folly is a sponsored artist of The Field (www.thefield.org).