“Something wicked this way comes” in October!

Returning for our sixth annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series, we are staging a mystical, modern-dress Macbeth in nine different outdoor venues throughout the Shelby County area from October 6-23. 

The Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series is generously sponsored by Evans Petree PC.

All 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.

Directed by Stephanie Shine, our 85-minute production of William Shakespeare’s fierce tragedy features a six-actor ensemble that includes TSC veterans Michael Khanlarian and Lauren Gunn as the Macbeths performing as Shakespeare’s players did while touring: with character and costume changes on-stage but with a full musical soundscape.  The ensemble also includes Pershon Harper, Rose James, Kellan Oelkers, and Nicolas Dureaux Picou.

Due to popular demand, the Series is expanding to three weeks this year, opening on October 6 outdoors at Wiseacre Brewery’s Broad Avenue location.  New venues this season include outdoors at Bartlett Performing Arts Center, the Maria Montessori School Amphitheatre in Harbortown, the Overton Park Shell, and the happy return after five years to the south lawn at Dixon Gallery & Gardens.  Returning venues include Collierville Town Square, International Harvester’s Managerial Park in Lakeland, Overton Square’s Chimes Amphitheatre, and Wiseacre Brewery’s location on S. B.B. King Boulevard.

Macbeth is most associated with its witches, murders, and invention of the word “assassination,” but Shakespeare’s shortest tragedy is packed full of politics, prophecy, and psychological turmoil.  Our production harkens to ghost stories told around a campfire in the darkness of the woods, with actors speaking of wickedness and power.  The monster at the center of this tale, however, is not a supernatural force, but unbridled human ambition.

“Macbeth is an ever-timely play, which perhaps is what makes it so frightening,” says Shine.  “How many generations will see themselves in the story of a good person making self-serving choices that devastate their community?  Fortunately, Shakespeare finishes this play with the possibility of a righted world and a mission for us to serve with the ‘grace of grace.’  I hope our audience is exhilarated by our facile cast as they weave a spell of deathly ambition and lead us back to the light. Watching these actors exercise their skill with enthusiasm and dexterity as they transform before one’s eyes is an exceptional delight.”

The production’s design team includes Jeremy Allen Fisher (scenic and lighting design), Allison White (costume design), Joe Johnson (sound design), and Lauren Gunn (stage combat).

Outdoor Performance and Venue Schedule for Macbeth

Thursday, October 6 at 7:00 pm        
Wiseacre Brewery, 2783 Broad Avenue

Friday, October 7 at 7:00 pm
International Harvester’s Managerial Park in Lakeland

Sunday, October 9 at 3:00 pm
Dixon Gallery & Gardens, 4339 Park Avenue

Thursday, October 13 at 7:00 pm
The Maria Montessori School Amphitheater in Harbortown, 740 Harbor Bend Road

Friday, October 14 at 7:00 pm
Overton Square’s Chimes Square Amphitheatre

Saturday, October 15 at 7:00 pm
Overton Square’s Chimes Square Amphitheatre

Thursday, October 20 at 7:00 pm
Wiseacre Brewery, 398 S. B.B. King Boulevard

Friday, October 21 at 7:00 pm
Bartlett Performing Arts Center, 3663 Appling Road

Saturday, October 22 at 7:00 pm
Collierville Town Square, Historic Train Depot

Sunday, October 23 at 4:00 pm
Overton Park Shell, 1928 Poplar Avenue

Artistic and Production Bios

Jeremy Allen Fisher (Technical Director; Scenic and Lighting Designer) TSC: Ada and the Engine, Macbeth, As You Like It, Waiting for Godot, Much Ado About Nothing, To Kill a Mockingbird, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Richard III, The Taming of the Shrew, Unto the Breach, It’s a Wonderful Life, Hamlet. 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, Opera Memphis, 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 new Taproom, and several works at Saint Jude’s Research Hospital and Lebonheur Children’s Hospital. Awards: 2017 TAC Individual Artist Award, and 11 Ostrander Award nominations with four wins for Lighting Designs.

Nathan Greene (Assistant Technical Director) TSC: Ada and the Engine. Other Credits: La Cage aux Folles, Ragtime, Falsettos, Eurydice, Man of La Mancha, Rocky Horror Show. Nathan is a graduate of the University of Tulsa’s Theater program with a B.A. in Theater Design and Technology.

Lauren Gunn (Lady Macbeth, Bloody Captain, Macduff, Apparition, Messenger) TSC: Henry VI, Macbeth, 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 a new ensemble member of the improv group Playback Memphis, as well as an associate instructor candidate for Dueling Arts International. Education: University of Southern Mississippi (M.F.A. in Acting).

Pershon Harper (Malcolm, Witch, Young Macduff) TSC: Amongst the Stars of Jesmyn Ward, Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Gala. Other credits: A Bright Room Called Day, R and J and Z, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream LITE. Education: Pershon holds a B.F.A. in Performance from the University of Memphis.

Rose James (Duncan, Witch, Lennox, Doctor, Fleance, Lady Macduff) is a graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi with a B.A. in Theatre.

Joe Johnson (Sound Designer) is a singer-songwriter, composer, sound designer, and educator. Since the pandemic, Joe has shifted his focus from live performance to composition and education but is looking forward to returning to the performance world. 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. Joe is looking forward to releasing new music in the coming year. He has received numerous awards for composition and sound design, including the Ostrander award for theatrical sound design for Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice. He has composed music for films, plays, and commercial presentations. He composed music featured in New York and Memphis Fashion Weeks.  He 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. He received his Master’s degree from the University of Southern Mississippi and did more post-Graduate work at the University of Georgia. He approaches his work as a working musician with the mind of an educator and continues to seek out opportunities to enrich the lives of other musicians as he shares in numerous collaborative projects. Joe lives in Memphis with his wife, Nichol, and their cat.

Michael Khanlarian (Macbeth, Murderer) is a founding company member of TSC where he has worked as a teacher/coach for Juvenile Justice, Feast of Crispian-South (serving our military veterans at the Memphis V.A), and many communities across the Mid-South. Michael is also a proud member of Playback Memphis and rounds out his outreach as a teaching-artist for the Orpheum. Michael is pleased to continue to call TSC his second home.

Ashlyn Nicole (Stage Manager) graduated from The Jeanine Larson Dobbins Conservatory of Theater and Dance at Southeast Missouri State University with a B.F.A. in Theater Design and Technology. Most recently, she worked at the Kroc Center of Memphis, where she helped to rebuild their performing arts summer camp program. This is her first season with Tennessee Shakespeare Company.

Kellan Oelkers (Witch, Ross, Murderer, Messenger) TSC: Macbeth, The Romeo and Juliet Project, Henry VI. Theatre Memphis: Our Town. Quill Theatre: The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Two Gentlemen of Verona. NextStop Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Baltimore Shakespeare Factory: Romeo and Juliet. Theater J: The Jewish Queen Lear. Kellan is a graduate of Georgetown University with a B.A. in Theater and Performance Studies.

Nicolas Dureaux Picou (Banquo, Porter, Seyton, Young Siward, Murderer, Gentle Woman), a native Memphian, has worked with TSC since 2016. Roles with TSC: As You Like It (Orlando), Macbeth (Malcolm), Romeo and Juliet (Romeo), Comedy of Errors (Dromio of Ephesus), Ada and the Engine (Lords Lovelace and Byron), Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses (Warwick/Cade), and The Tempest (Ariel). Literary Salons: Boats Against the Current (Nick), Blue Roses of Tennessee Williams (Jim O’Connor), and Truman Capote’s Christmas Memory (Queenie). Nic also serves students in Shelby County classrooms as a Romeo and Juliet Project teaching-artist, and he leads poetry classes for incarcerated youth in Shelby County as part of TSC’s Juvenile Justice program. Nic dedicates his work with children to the memory of his dear friend, Fred: equal parts empathy, intelligence, and luminous idealism.

Stephanie Shine+ (Director) TSC directorial credits include Henry VI: Wars of the Roses, Macbeth, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Southern Yuletide, Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits, Shake(s), Rattle, and Roll, Shakespeare Said It, Lend Me Thy Sword, eleven productions of Romeo and Juliet, and many Literary Salons. On stage at TSC, she played the Abbess in The Comedy of Errors, Countess in All’s Well That Ends Well, the female roles in Unto the Breach, and Gertrude in Hamlet. Prior to joining TSC, she was Artistic Director of Seattle Shakespeare Company, a position she enjoyed for 13 years. Other directorial credits include King Lear and As You Like It for Houston Shakespeare Festival, The Taming of the Shrew and The Comedy of Errors for Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the award-winning one-woman internationally-touring Marilyn Monroe Biopic, Marilyn: Forever Blonde, and several new works for Seattle’s Book-It Repertory Theatre. Her production of I am of Ireland (which she also conceived and adapted) opened Book-It’s 25th Anniversary Season in 2014. As an actor, she has performed with the Oregon Shakespearean Festival, NYC’s Theatre for a New Audience, Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Alley Theatre, Arizona Theatre Company, ACT, The Empty Space, and Seattle Children’s Theatre, among others. Roles include Juliet, Rosalind, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Regan, Feste, Kate, Bianca, Dionyza, the Princess of France, Hero, Perdita, and the Chorus in Henry V. The Germantown Arts Alliance honored her with its 2016 Distinguished Arts and Humanities Medal for Performing Arts. She is the mother of four exceptional people: Conor, Cahilan, Sullivan, and Collins. Education: graduate of the Pacific Conservatory of the Performing Arts; B.F.A in Acting from the University of Washington’s Professional Actor Training Program; M.F.A. in Directing from the University of Memphis.

Allison White (Costume Designer) Design credits: Theatre Memphis: You Can’t Take It with You; Tennessee Shakespeare Company: King Henry VI: The Wars of the Roses, Ada and the Engine, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth; University of Florida: Pippin, Between Riverside and Crazy, The Day is Long to End; Cape Fear Regional Theatre: Caroline, Or Change; Sarasota Youth Opera: The Secret World of Og; Theatre Raleigh: Smokey Joe’s Café, The Wolf, All My Sons, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Carousel. Allison has also worked at several regional theatre and opera companies as a member of their costume production staffs. She has an M.F.A. in Theatre from The University of Florida.

+ member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Inc., an independent national labor union.

Season 15 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, Mid-America Arts Alliance, Campbell Clinic, the family of Pat and Ernest Kelly, The Sims Family Charitable Trust, Nancy R. Copp, the Jack Jones Children’s Literacy Fund, the family of Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, and Dorothy O. Kirsch.

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 projects and productions are supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.  To find out more about how National Endowment for the Arts grants impact individuals and communities, visit www.arts.gov.

TSC’s programming and outreach partners include University of Memphis’ Department of Theatre & Dance, Shelby County Schools, Memphis Juvenile Justice System, the Memphis V.A. Hospital, Cities of Bartlett/Collierville/Lakeland/Memphis, Shelby County Election Commission, the Benjamin Hooks Public Library Friends, and WKNO Radio (91.1 FM Memphis).