Tennessee Shakespeare Company’s 7th Annual FREE Shout-Out Shakespeare Series
Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the printing of the First Folio
Returning for our seventh annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series, Tennessee Shakespeare Company steps onto a mystical isle with The Tempest in ten different outdoor venues throughout the Shelby County area for free October 5-22. And for the first time in the Series’ history, The Tempest also will play indoors on our Tabor Stage for its two final performances for half-priced admission on October 28 and 29.
The Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series, which launches our 16th season, is generously sponsored by Evans Petree PC, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Shakespeare Fund of Theater League of Kansas City.
Outdoor performances are free and open to the public. No tickets or reservations are required: first-come/first-seated. Patrons are encouraged to bring a chair or blanket for seating, and to picnic. Indoor Tabor Stage performances require reservations by contacting our Box Office here or (901) 759-0604.
Directed by TSC Founder and Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, this 90-minute production of William Shakespeare’s final romance features a thirteen-actor ensemble that includes founding member Michael Khanlarian as Prospero and TSC veterans Lauren Gunn, Stuart Heyman, and Nicolas Dureaux Picou. The ensemble also includes our inaugural Classical Theatre Apprentice Company.
This production will be played in the period Shakespeare wrote it and with all of the music and songs authored. The design team includes Jeremy Allen Fisher (scenic and lighting design), Allison White (costume design), Kristen Fisher (properties design), and Joe Johnson (sound design).
The Series spans four weeks this year, opening on October 5 outdoors at Wiseacre Brewery’s Downtown location on B.B. King Boulevard. New venues this season include Woodlawn in LaGrange, TN, Davies Manor in Bartlett, and a jubilant return to St. George’s Episcopal Church in Germantown, where our first performances were held in 2008. Returning venues include Bartlett Performing Arts Center (outdoors), Collierville Town Square, Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Overton Park Shell, Overton Square’s Chimes Square Amphitheatre, and Wiseacre Brewery’s Broad Avenue location.
In The Tempest, Shakespeare creates a science fiction in which a usurped Duke from Italy and his three-year-old daughter are exiled to the sea. Providence lands them on an uncharted island that has witnessed its own usurpations in the spirit world, leaving only the elemental Ariel and the earthen Caliban on it. Over 12 years, Duke Prospero, a self-taught wizard, raises his daughter and indentures the two island inhabitants. The Tempest begins when he creates a tempest to shipwreck the royal party responsible for his exile. His intent is vengeful. But then as his daughter falls in love, and as the elements subdue him, and as two drunken clowns attempt to usurp him again, Prospero’s heart is reawakened to what Miranda describes as a “brave new world.”
“It is a piece of theatre that is in the end quite aware of itself,” says McCleary. “But if we remain open to the story throughout, we see Shakespeare’s and the artist’s – and therefore, our humanity’s – hopeful narrative of a life creatively lived and crowned with grace, thus offering a legacy. When we get to perform this play outside, the fantastical elements have a tendency to become shared and married to the mortal. It’s a rare piece of harmony: philosophically mature yet playfully youthful.”
The Tempest is considered Shakespeare’s farewell to the stage, written in 1610-11. During a period in which he pens a group of plays that we modernly define as “romances,” it might more accurately be described as a time of self-reckoning for the playwright: where the daughters and spirit world redeem the fathers, where revenge and violence give way to forgiveness and grace, and where our human age is finally acknowledged as terminal yet ethereal.
William Shakespeare would die just five to six years after writing The Tempest, as the play foreshadows. Were it not for Shakespeare’s good friends John Heminges and Henry Condell, the play would not survive today. The two of them collected 36 of Shakespeare’s plays into one large volume titled the First Folio, which was published in 1623. Between 750-1,000 copies were printed. This year, then, marks the 400th anniversary of the printing of one of the world’s most significant and creative works. The Tempest was selected as the first play to appear in the volume.
FREE Outdoor Performance/Venue Schedule for The Tempest
Thursday, October 5 at 7:00 pm: Downtown Wiseacre Brewery
398 South B.B. King Boulevard, Memphis; no reservations required
Friday, October 6 at 7:00 pm: Overton Square’s Chimes Square Amphitheatre
2101 Madison Avenue, Memphis; no reservations required
Saturday, October 7 at 4:00 pm: Woodlawn
24545 TN-57, LaGrange, TN; no reservations required
Sunday, October 8 at 3:00 pm: Dixon Gallery & Gardens
4339 Park Avenue, Memphis; no reservations required
Friday, October 13 at 7:00 pm: Bartlett Performing Arts Center
3663 Appling Road, Bartlett; no reservations required
Sunday, October 15 at 4:00 pm: Overton Shell
1928 Poplar Avenue, Memphis; no reservations required
Thursday, October 19 at 7:00 pm: Broad Avenue Wiseacre Brewery
2783 Broad Avenue, Memphis; no reservations required
Friday, October 20 at 7:00 pm: St. George’s Episcopal Church
2425 S. Germantown Rd., Germantown; no reservations required
Saturday, October 21 at 7:00 pm: Collierville Town Square’s Train Depot
96 N. Center Street, Collierville; no reservations required
Sunday, October 22 at 3:00 pm: Davies Manor
9336 Davies Plantation Road, Bartlett; no reservations required
Half-Price Tabor Stage Performances, Reservations Required:
Saturday, October 28 at 7:30 pm: Tennessee Shakespeare Company
Sunday, October 29 at 3:00 pm: Tennessee Shakespeare Company
Artistic and Production Bios
Marquis Dijon Archuleta (Ferdinand) TSC: most recently in Cyrano de Bergerac; also Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar. Regional: Of Mice and Men (Crooks), The Shawshank Redemption (Red), Pentecost (Antonio), Romeo and Juliet (Lord Capulet), and Jesus Christ Superstar (Simon Peter).
Carleigh Boyle (Sebastian) Favorite roles include Fun Home (Medium Alison), The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Siobhan), The Rocky Horror Show (Riff Raff), Silent Sky (Henrietta Leavitt), Twelfth Night (Olivia), and The Wolves (#46).
Victoria Coulter (Stage Manager) recently received her B.F.A. in Design and Production with a concentration in Stage Management from University of North Carolina School of the Arts. Some previous credits include Assistant Stage Manager for Measure for Measure at Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Production Stage Manager for Weston Theater Company’s TYA Shrek, and Production Assistant for American Ballet Theater’s Summer MET season.
Jeremy Allen Fisher (Production Manager; Technical Director; Resident Lighting Designer) TSC Resident Lighting Designer 2014-present; and Opera Memphis Resident Lighting Designer 2013-present. Jeremy is a member of United Scenic Artists Local USA 829 and a graduate of Oklahoma City University. He has worked with Theatre Memphis, Youngblood Studios, Ballet Memphis, University of Memphis, Memphis’ Orpheum Theatre, Seattle Opera, Desoto Family Theatre, New Day Children’s Theatre, and New Ballet Ensemble. Some of his other credits include lighting Memphis’ Broad Avenue Water Tower, Wiseacre’s downtown Taproom, and several works at Saint Jude’s Research Hospital and Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital. Awards: 2017 TAC Individual Artist Award, and 11 Ostrander Award nominations with four wins for Lighting Design.
Kristen Fisher (Props Coordinator) TSC: Props Manager for The Tempest, The Glass Menagerie, Complete Works abridged, It’s A Wonderful Life, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, To Kill A Mockingbird; Stage Manager for Pericles, Showplace Memphis. Kristen is the Director of Production for Ballet Memphis, now in her eleventh season with the company.
Lauren Gunn (Stephano) TSC: Cyrano de Bergerac, Macbeth, Henry VI, Ada and the Engine, Romeo and Juliet, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley. Southern Arena Theatre: Boeing Boeing, I Hate Hamlet. New Stage Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Crimes of the Heart, A Christmas Carol, Cat in the Hat. Fish Tale Group Theatre: Voice of Freedom Summer. Unframed: Constellations, Gruesome Playground Injuries. Lauren is honored to continue serving military veterans at the Memphis V.A. Medical Center with the Feast of Crispian-South program. Lauren is a member and associate instructor with Dueling Arts International.
Elijah Eliakim Hernandez (Caliban) Credits in Texas: Coriolanus, Dracula, All My Sons, She Stoops to Conquer, The Impostor, Camino Real, Sense & Sensibility, and Treasure Island.
Stuart Heyman (Gonzalo) TSC: Cyrano de Bergerac (Ragueneau), As You Like It (Old Adam), The Comedy of Errors (Duke Solinus), All’s Well That Ends Well (Lefeu), The Taming of the Shrew (Baptista), Othello (Brabantio), As You Like It (Corin). Theatre Memphis: Dracula (Van Helsing). Circuit Playhouse: Peter and the Starcatcher (Alf) and Tom Sawyer (Doc Robinson). Desoto Family Theatre: My Fair Lady (Henry Higgins) and Oliver! (Fagin). Germantown Community Theatre: Man of La Mancha (Cervantes/Quixote). New Moon Theatre: The Homecoming (Teddy).
Kristina Hinako (Miranda) Credits include: Treasure Island, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Blue Stockings, Men on Boats. She previously served as an Artist Educator at Kentucky Shakespeare Festival.
Joe Johnson (Sound Designer/Composer) TSC: Cyrano de Bergerac, Macbeth. Joe is a singer-songwriter, composer, sound designer, and educator. He recently attended Folk Alliance International with Music Exports Memphis. He performs regularly in and around Memphis, and writes and records with several other Memphis musicians. He has received numerous awards for composition and sound design, including an Ostrander Award for theatrical sound design for Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. He has composed music for films, plays, and commercial presentations. Joe taught music in Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas public schools, integrating language arts and mathematics into the music classroom, and he is currently teaching in Memphis.
Irene Keeney (Boatswain/Juno) TSC: Salon: The Heart is a Lonely Hunter. Other credits: Constellations, The White Plague, Mr. Burns: A Post Electric Play, Whose Wives are They Anyway, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Seagull, and The Importance of Being Earnest.
Michael Khanlarian (Prospero) is a founding member of TSC where roles include Macbeth, Lucky in Waiting for Godot, and Roderigo in Othello. Michael actively serves as an ensemble member of Playback Memphis and shares their expertise as a teaching-artist with various organizations in the city, including the Orpheum, Theatre Memphis, and TSC.
Logan McCarty (Trinculo) Credits in Mississippi include Macbeth, Peter Pan, Quills, Much Ado About Nothing, Boeing Boeing, and Cabaret.
Dan McCleary (Director), a native of Memphis, last year directed The Trouble Begins at Eight: Mark Twain featuring Pete Pranica and played the title role in Cyrano de Bergerac. For TSC, he also has directed/acted in As You Like It (playing Jaques), Ada and the Engine, Blue Roses of Tennessee Williams (playing Tennessee with his son, Collins), Julius Caesar, Waiting for Godot, The Glass Menagerie (playing old Tom), The Taming of the Shrew (playing Sly), Richard III (playing Richard), To Kill a Mockingbird, Much Ado About Nothing, Ernest Hemingway in Key West, Flannery O’Connor’s Georgia Gothic, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, The Tempest, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the all-female Julius Caesar, Othello, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), Themes from a Midsummer Night with IRIS Orchestra, Classical Creations in Quarantine, and Shakespeare’s Election of Coriolanus. Dan is a published poet, and the creator/director/actor of the plays Speak What We Feel: Shakespeare’s Radical Response to a Radical Time; Unto the Breach; Quintessence: Shakespeare in Performance; and Classical Creations in Quarantine. Memphis Magazine has named him among the “Who’s Who in Memphis” for six years. Dan presented his TEDx Talk “Shakespeare in Kindergarten, or Let Fall Rome” in Memphis in 2020, and the Germantown Arts Alliance honored him with its 2009 Distinguished Arts and Humanities Medal for Performing Arts.
Micki McCormick (Assistant Technical Director) University of Memphis: Sound Design for A Bright Room Called Day; Pippin; Carnival Vitas, and Associate Sound Design for Romeo Juliet and Zombies. Production Electrician for Opera Memphis’s The Rising and the Falling, and University of Memphis’s Rocky Horror Picture Show. Micki is a 2022 Ostrander Award Winner for Excellence in Sound Design for A Bright Room Called Day.
Hadley Evans Nash (Queen Alonsa of Naples) Credits include The Importance of Being Earnest, Love’s Labor’s Lost, and Butts in Seats: Musical Settings of Shakespeare. Directing credits: King Lear, Cymbeline, And Through the Woods, My Dance with Lisa, and The Tempest. Hadley is the Artistic Director and Founder of Brick by Brick Players.
Nicolas Dureaux Picou (Antonio) Recently with TSC: Cyrano de Bergerac (Christian), Macbeth (Banquo/Porter/Seyton), Romeo and Juliet (Romeo), and Ada and the Engine (Lords Lovelace and Byron). Nic also recently appeared in New Moon Theatre’s production of Small Mouth Sounds (Ned). Offstage, Nic is proud to serve area high school students as a teaching-artist for the Romeo and Juliet Project and the Macbeth Initiative. Nearest to his heart is Nic’s work with justice-involved youth, for whom he facilitates poetry and Shakespeare classes as part of TSC’s Juvenile Justice program.
Jasmine Simmers (Assistant Stage Manager) Credits: Hamlet: Fall of the Sparrow, La Bohème, The Rocky Horror Show, Back When Mike Was Kate, Le Nozze di Figaro, Inherit the Wind, Shaming Jane Doe, and Spitfire Grill. Jasmine has worked with Playhouse on the Square, the University of Memphis, B Street Theatre in Sacramento, and as a counselor and stage manager with Stagedoor Manor in Loch Sheldrake, NY.
Cheleen Sugar-Ducksworth (Master/Ceres) Credits include El Paso Playhouse: It’s A Wonderful Life; Sweet Tea Shakespeare: Man of Mode, Venice Preserv’d, The School for Scandal, The Roaring Girl, Macbeth, Merry Wives of Windsor, Richard III. Also, she was featured in The Container, Phantasmagoria: Let Us Seek Death, and Selene and the Dream Eater with Burning Coal Theatre.
Allison Teegarden (Ariel) Ashland New Plays Festival: The Hunt for Benedetto Montone, Last Drive to Dodge; Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Greenshow: Today is the Day – Devised Commedia Dell’arte; Southern Oregon University: Dead Man’s Cell Phone, A Vampire Story, Angels in America: Millennium Approaches, Hay Fever. Other Credits: My Mind is on Fire (Oregon Screams Horror Film Festival Winner). Allison is the recipient of the regional Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival Irene Ryan and Voice and Speech Trainers Association award, and a national Mark Twain Comedic Acting award.
Allison White (Costume Designer) has been the resident costume designer and costume shop manager at TSC for the last two seasons: Cyrano de Bergerac, Ada and the Engine, Macbeth, Henry VI: The War of the Roses, The Romeo and Juliet Project (2022 and 2023); also I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change (Germantown Community Theatre); Blithe Spirit, You Can’t Take it With You (Theatre Memphis); Pippin, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Day is Long to End (University of Florida); Caroline, or Change (Cape Fear Regional Theatre); The Secret World of Og (Sarasota Opera Youth Program); Smokey Joe’s Café, All My Sons, The Mystery of Edwin Drood (Theatre Raleigh).
Box Office
Half-price tickets for The Tempest indoors on the Tabor Stage are $20 (Students $10/Seniors $15). For all other performances outdoors, no reservations or purchases are required. Seating outdoors is first-come/first-seated. Please bring your own chairs.
Tabor Stage tickets may be purchased online here or by calling (901) 759-0604. Open Monday-Friday from 9:00 am – 4:00 pm, and one hour prior to curtain. TSC is located at 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis, TN 38018-6297. No refunds/exchanges. The house opens 30 minutes prior to curtain. Credit Card charges require a $1 per-ticket fee. Free Tabor Stage parking and covered drop-off at the front door are available at TSC.
The cast and schedule are subject to change with notice.
Season 16 Sponsors and Partners
TSC’s generous sponsors of its season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include FedEx, International Paper, Arts Midwest, ARTSmemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, Independent Bank, Evans Petree PC, First Horizon Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, AutoZone, Nancy R. Copp, Kathryn and Jim Gilliland, Anne and Mike Keeney, Pat and Ernest Kelly, Dorothy O. Kirsch, J. Walker Sims and the Sims Family Charitable Trust, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, the family of Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, and the Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund.
TSC’s season is funded under a Grant Contract with the State of Tennessee; and is being supported, in whole or in part, by federal award number SLFRP5534, awarded to the State of Tennessee by the U.S. Department of Treasury.
TSC’s programming and outreach partners include Bartlett Performing Arts Center, Benjamin Hooks Public Library Friends, Cities of Bartlett and Collierville and Memphis, Davies Manor, Dixon Gallery & Gardens, Memphis Juvenile Justice System, Memphis V.A. Medical Center, Overton Park Shell, Overton Square, Shelby County Election Commission, Shelby County Schools, University of Memphis’ Department of Theatre & Dance, Wiseacre Brewery, WKNO Radio (91.1 FM Memphis), and Woodlawn.
