Featuring the rarely-produced Shakespeare comedy Love’s Labor’s Lost, a world premiere 1950s Christmas Cabaret, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the country’s first American Page to American Stage New Play Festival, and Broadway Star Norm Lewis performing at the Gala
We are announcing our 19th performance season of “firsts” in Memphis featuring our 10th Annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series that includes our first production ever of Love’s Labor’s Lost throughout west Tennessee in the fall, the world premiere of our first 1950s cabaret in December titled A Swingin’ Christmas Cabaret, our first production of the play version of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Broadway legend Norm Lewis’ first performance in Memphis for the Broadway Gala for Children’s Literacy, and the launch of the country’s first American Page to American Stage New Classical Play Festival featuring adaptations of works by Herman Melville, Ernest Hemingway, Kate Chopin, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Walt Whitman, and Richard Wright.
In addition to our free performances in our popular outdoor Shout-Out Series, we will again offer Free Will Kids’ Nights for every Friday night performance on our Tabor Stage. This offer provides free admission to up to four children 17 years and younger when they are accompanied by at least one paying adult guardian.
Committed to classical arts innovation in the United States, TSC remains the State’s only permanently-based, professional, classical theatre. TSC and Founder/Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary remain committed to artistic excellence, teaching innovation, and social betterment through the plays of William Shakespeare and classical writers.
We believe that the plays of William Shakespeare and classical theatre are for everyone; that the arts must move closer to the center of every Tennessee child’s formal education; and that the State needs the poetry, collaboration, and healing truths of the world’s finest writers and artists.
“We make a strategic effort to meet our many communities where they live,” says McCleary. “TSC enjoys being a voting location for our Early Voting period and for Election Day, and we welcomed nearly 200 patrons to our Tabor Stage on July 4 for our first Free Community Reading of the Declaration of Independence last month. These feel like natural extensions of our daily work in our multiple school systems, VA Medical Center, and juvenile justice centers — as well as our decade of touring 14 free productions to outdoor venues throughout Shelby County.
“I hope our new American Page Festival will shine a positive national spotlight on Memphis and our desire to help audiences of all ages in American theatres and classrooms remain inspired by the greatest novels, poetry, and stories of all time. And if that means we adapt classical literature to exciting, 60-90-minute plays, we will do that. We love a challenge.”
Across 17 seasons, we have achieved over 740,000 points of contact through 85 productions in 42 community venues; educated over 155,000 students in 130 schools; served the health needs of more than 1,200 Veterans at the Memphis V.A. Medical Center; and brought Shakespeare and creative writing to 600 youths in three Memphis detention centers.
TSC will host its free Performance Season Preview Party on Tuesday, September 29 from 5:30-7:00 pm on its Tabor Stage. Beginning with light food and drinks, the evening will showcase excerpts from each of the season’s shows, announce an update to the season’s signature matching grant campaign, introduce its new Board members, and launch its first “fun-raising” group, TSC Folio Friends, chaired by Board Vice President/Memphis Grizzlies TV announcer Pete Pranica with vice chair Gay Daughdrill Boyd. Free tickets must be reserved online here or by calling the Box Office at (901) 759-0604.
We are returning our fourth annual Classical Theatre Apprentice Program for early-career professionals from around the country as they continue their classical training with our professional teachers, actors, and stage managers for seven months while in residency in Memphis. Graduates of each of the previous three cohorts will perform on our stage this season, while almost all other graduates are working or continuing their training in the profession around the U.S.
The 2026-27 Performance Season
10th Annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series:
LOVE’S LABOR’S LOST
the pastoral comedy by William Shakespeare
directed by Stephanie Shine
run-time: 90 minutes without intermission
September 25 – October 18
on outdoor stages throughout west Tennessee,
and indoors (paid) at TSC
sponsored by Evans Petree PC, National Endowment for the Arts, Tennessee Arts Commission, The Shakespeare Fund of Theater League of Kansas City, ArtsFirst grant from First Horizon Foundation
The French king and a select few men have moved their court to the garden park of Navarre, where they swear to create “a little academe” that will study for three years while swearing off women: “still and contemplative in living art.” But when the Princess of France and her ladies appear, all oaths are off. With a play-title like this, is it possible nuptials will ensue? The colorful denizens of the woods hope to help!
A SWINGIN’ CHRISTMAS CABARET
created and directed by Dan McCleary
on the Tabor Stage
run-time: approximately one hour without intermission
December 4-20
Fridays-Saturdays at 7:30 pm/Sundays at 4:00 pm
Preview is December 4
sponsored by James R. Humphreys
Things really get swingin’ this holiday season when Bingo pays Frankie a visit one 1950s snowy Christmas Eve. After an exchange of musical gifts and wassail around the tinsel-strewn tree, the snappy twosome takes a merry journey back in musical time – way back, brother! Featuring guest star vocalists (from multiple centuries) and many of your favorite carols and radio hits, this cool yule of a cabaret will jazz up any family or office celebration. Bistro-table seating available for you and your cocktails. Featuring the return of some of our Taming of the Shrew stars!
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
THE GREAT GATSBY
adapted for the stage by
Simon Levy
directed by Stephanie Shine
on the Tabor Stage
run-time: approximately 2 hours 20 minutes, including intermission
January 29 – February 14, 2027
Fridays-Saturdays at 7:30 pm/Sundays at 3:00 pm
Preview is January 29
Sponsored by Pat and Ernest Kelly; and
Performed in loving memory of Joseph “Joe” Orgill, III (Anne and Mike Keeney)
The young American Dream comes into poetic perspective in this celebrated play-adaptation of Fitzgerald’s classic 1925 novel. Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan play out a glitzy fable – of America, of the Jazz Age, of enchantment and illusions, of a world where love and dreams are pursued and betrayed.
Presented by arrangement with Concord Theatricals on behalf of Dramatists Play Service: www.concordtheatricals.com
AMERICAN PAGE TO AMERICAN STAGE:
NEW, CLASSICAL PLAY FESTIVAL
curated by Dan McCleary
on the Tabor Stage
Readings/Staged Readings run-times: 60-90 minutes, including any intermission, followed by a discussion with the adapters
March 12-13 and March 19-20, 2027
Sponsored by ARTSmemphis and James R. Humphreys
Memphis becomes the first artistic launch city for a new play festival that will annually curate classical American literature for stage adaptation to plays. This inaugural year features six readings/staged readings in early development and a rare opportunity for you to see how plays are created, to provide feedback, and then track their progress to professional stage maturity.
Friday, March 12 at 7:30 pm:
richard WRITE!
adapted from Richard Wright’s Black Boy
and performed by Darius Wallace
In Wright’s 1945 autobiography, a man born burning with the wish to become someone worthy struggles to survive the Jim Crow South. He tries every cure the world offers for the disease of being himself, discovering along the way that his rare gift was always the burning love of words. Wright’s American story from Natchez to Chicago offers an authentic voice still refusing to be silenced.
Saturday, March 13 at 4:00 pm:
The Old Man and the Sea
by Ernest Hemingway, newly adapted by Tim Hotchner
based on the stage adaptation by A.E. Hotchner and Tim Hotchner
Santiago has come home beaten, with a skeleton lashed to his skiff. He conjures the sea from memory, the boy nearby acting as love and longing on both sides of the voyage. And underneath: a great writer’s reckoning with endurance, loss, and the fear of being finished. Hemingway asked trusted friend A.E. Hotchner to adapt his story to the stage. He did so very late in life, with his son Tim, who now re-imagines the epic for one man in one room on one night.
Saturday, March 13 at 7:30 pm:
The Yellow Wallpaper
by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, adapted by Nena Martins
Gilman’s 1892 Gothic horror short story is regarded as a landmark of feminist literature. Her narrator is placed on a “rest cure” for a “nervous depression,” following the birth of her child. She is forbidden to write. But write she does, in journal entries of precision and imagination that both animate her room into a fever and explore misogyny within the medical field that still begs for revisiting.
Friday, March 19 at 7:30 pm:
The Awakening
by Kate Chopin, adapted by Paula Cizmar
In 1899, two decades before women could vote, Chopin wrote a visionary and scandalous novel that challenged the way women think of their lives, bodies, and connection to nature. Set in a prim and proper age, Edna Pontellier casts off the role of obedient wife and mother in New Orleans as she allows the sensuousness of the Gulf Coast sea, sky, and sultry breeze to work their magic.
Saturday, March 20 at 4:00 pm:
Flame: Poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay
adapted by Gay H. Hammond
Weaving the verse, prose, and imagination of the 1923 Pulitzer-winning Millay, this piece offers a compelling dreamscape of wonder and yearning. In concert with iconic imagery, the poet’s words embody both our inner and outer worlds with lyricism and a biting wit.
Saturday, March 20 at 7:30 pm:
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville
and
Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
adapted and performed by Dan McCleary
In the literary family tree, there is Homer, Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, then arguably Melville and Whitman. Born the same year (1819) and dying within months of each other, the two American sensualists create and question their American God in prose and poems, from land and sea, in obscurity and in fame. Here, their ineffable tomes are twinned in poetic kinship and cosmic brevity.
Note: Titles/personnel/schedule subject to change, with notice.
BROADWAY GALA FOR CHILDREN’S LITERACY: STARRING NORM LEWIS
on the Tabor Stage
Saturday, April 10, 2027
6:00-9:00 pm
Our annual blow-out party features open bars, signature cocktails, fun silent and live auctions, a chance to win a weekend trip for two to Manhattan, and a Broadway giant performing on stage before joining you for dessert.
Norm Lewis is the multi-decade star of Phantom of the Opera, Le Miz, Sweeney Todd, Porgy and Bess, Little Mermaid, Jesus Christ Superstar, Chess, Show Boat, La Cage, Miss Saigon, Pippin, Chicago, Sideshow, and The Tempest (Prospero). And all proceeds go to our Education and Outreach Program.
EDUCATION AND OUTREACH PROGRAMS
Funded in part by Tennessee Arts Commission, ARTSmemphis, National Endowment for the Arts, Independent Bank, AutoZone, First Horizon Foundation, Arts Midwest, Mid-America Arts Alliance, TSC’s Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, and TSC’s Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund.
The Romeo and Juliet Project: The only program of its kind in the nation, in which our resident teacher-artists rehearse 9th-graders into an appreciation that violence is not the answer to life’s complexities.
The Macbeth Initiative: This singular program for 12th-graders uses the great tragedy to explore personal ethical issues such as ambition and power.
Juvenile Justice Program: inspiring adolescents’ life-changes upon release from detainment through Shakespeare and our Poetic Justice Summer Camp. One of the few such programs in the nation.
Feast of Crispian-South: We are the only theatre in the nation with a program joined officially with the V.A. Medical Center to prepare our heroes in the PTSD and chemical dependency wards to re-enter the world with health and all they deserve.
Summer Shakespeare Camps and Adult Theatre Classes
Elementary/Middle/High School Playshops and Residencies
Box Office
Purchase tickets online here or by calling (901) 759-0604. Open Tuesday-Friday from 9:00 am – 5:00 pm, and one hour prior to curtain. TSC is located at7950 Trinity Road, Memphis, TN 38018-6297.
The Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series production of Love’s Labor’s Lost is free of charge, does not require reservations/tickets, and performs outdoors in multiple off-site venues. Two added performances will perform inside on our Tabor Stage for half-off admission at $22 (Students $12/Seniors $15). One performance at Elmwood Cemetery will charge a modest admission price through the Cemetery’s website here.
A Swingin’ Christmas Cabaret and The Great Gatsby Preview tickets are $22. All other performances are $44 (Students $24/Seniors $39). Fridays for A Swingin’ Christmas Cabaret and The Great Gatsby are FREE WILL KIDS’ NIGHTS: up to 4 children 17 years and younger may attend for free when accompanied by at least one, full-price-paying Adult guardian; while seats last. Free Will Kids’ Night tickets must be purchased through the Box Office either via phone at (901) 759-0604 or in-person.
The American Page to American Stage: New, Classical Play Festival tickets are $29 per reading/staged reading (Students $22/Seniors $26).
The Broadway Gala for Children’s Literacy: Starring Norm Lewis single tickets are $150, with 8-ticket Platinum/6-ticket Gold/4-ticket Silver Table Sponsorships available with tiered benefits. Early Bird single tickets at $125 are available through February 15, 2027. Please contact Stephanie Shine for details at (901) 759-0604.
No refunds/exchanges. The house opens 30 minutes prior to curtain. Credit Card charges require a $2.00 per-ticket fee. Casts and schedules are subject to change with notice. Free parking and a covered drop-off location at the front door are available for all Tabor Stage performances at TSC.
Season 19 Sponsors
TSC’s generous sponsors of its season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include ARTSmemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, James R. Humphreys, Evans Petree PC, Pat and Ernest Kelly, J. Walker Sims and the Sims Family Charitable Trust, Nancy R. Copp, Anne and Mike Keeney, Independent Bank, National Endowment for the Arts, Arts Midwest, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Pete Pranica, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, and the Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund. TSC’s season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee.
About Tennessee Shakespeare Company
Tennessee Shakespeare Company is a professional, not-for-profit theatre and education organization in Memphis dedicated to live, diverse performances of William Shakespeare’s plays, as well as works of social significance by classical, Southern, and modern writers; and to providing innovative educational and training programming in-person and online.
Founded in 2008 by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, Tennessee Shakespeare Company is Memphis’ first and still only professional, classical theatre. In 2017, TSC purchased its first performing arts facility, which is being renovated into the state’s only permanent home for professional, year-round Shakespeare performance, education, and training.
TSC has engaged its community with 85 site-specific plays and events for nearly 70,000 patrons. Its ground-breaking Education Program has reached 200 schools across nine states, totaling over 620,000 student interactions. The Program has achieved a high regional and national profile, partners annually with most local school systems, and generates a $2.4 million economic impact for its community annually (source: ARTSmemphis, 2026).
