Knoxville Shakespeare
The Winter's Tale
May 8, 9, 10, 11 & 15, 16, 17, 18
The Historic Mabry Hazen House
7:30 pm nightly 2:00 pm Sunday matinees
Family, fairytale, and forgiveness entwine in this lyrical, late-Shakespearean Romance. When King Leontes wrongfully accuses his wife of adultery, he unleashes a storm of tragedy upon the kingdom of Sicilia. His libeled queen, Hermione, succumbs to sorrow and their newborn child is left to perish in a foreign land. Sixteen years later, a young prince and a mysterious peasant girl elope to Sicilia, leading to an extraordinary reunion that just might give everyone a happily ever after. What we changed was Innocence for Innocence. We knew not the doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed that any did.
Love's Labour's Lost
July 17, 19, 25, 27, 31 August 2, 8, 10
7:30 pm nightly 2:00 pm Indoor Matinee on July 27
The King of Navarre and his three best friends swear to shut themselves away from the World
and the distracting company of women for three years to devote their time to study and
reflection. Enter the beautiful young Princess of France and three of her ladies in waiting to
negotiate a treaty between the two countries. How long can the young men keep their vows when
they are tempted by such beauty, charm and intelligence? Watch the men melt with love, deny all
shortcomings and make complete and loveable fools of themselves at the hands of four very
sharp and beautiful women. They have been at a great feast of languages and stolen the
scraps…
HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK
July 18, 20, 24, 26, Aug. 1, 3, 7, 9
7:30 pm nightly 2:00 pm Indoor Matinee on August 3
The most famous play ever written – often proclaimed the greatest play ever – Shakespeare’s
immortal story of the young Prince of Denmark who suspects his stepfather of murdering his
father for the crown – and his wife. Of all Shakespeare’s plays, Hamlet is the most exciting,
questioning, disturbing, spiritual, provoking, transcendent, whirling and honest. In that it is the
playwright’s most profound and elusive depiction of the human condition. To be, or not to be,
that is the question.
Knoxville Shakespeare on the Hill is made possible in part by:
– The East Tennessee Foundation’s Katherine Davis Moore and Mary Elizabeth (Betty) David Foundation Fund;
– Federal award number 21.027 awarded to Knox County by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the Arts & Culture Alliance;
– And Patrons Like You!
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose / By any other name would smell as sweet.
ROMEO AND JULIET | JULIET CAPULET II.ii
It’s 1989, and 4 performers just bombed.
Where it all started…
Sitting around a sandwich shop, in High Point, North Carolina, four East Tennessee actors are bemoaning their auditions. As it sometimes happens, they each walked out of their shot a season’s worth of work, saying the same thing: “Well, that went badly.” So someone came up with a brilliant idea– let’s start our own thing.
And that is how the Tennessee Stage Company was born.
East Tennessee Shakespeare in the Park’s inaugural season in 1990 began with Taming of the Shrew in the World’s Fair Park Amphitheater. The next step, was 2003’s production of As You Like It, at the then unfinished Market Square. When we started “Shakespeare on the Square”, we set out to continue to bring Shakespeare to the city of Knoxville in an a way we hadn’t seen before. For Seventeen years, thousands of patrons flocked to our home on Market Square. We experimented with other outdoor theatre spaces when the pandemic hit by using Ijams Nature Center. As we grow, we want to expand the possibilities beyond the Square. We hope you share our excitement for the future and fondly remember our past. Thank you for being here.