Tennessee Shakespeare Company Delves into the Psyche with our Thrilling Art Deco Production of
Hamlet
Featuring Actor/Pianist Eliza Pagelle
April 4-21 on the Tabor Stage
We are bringing the action-packed, psychological tragedy of William Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the Tabor Stage April 4-21.
Directed by Stephanie Shine (TSC’s The Importance of Being Earnest, Emily Dickinson: I Dwell in Possibility, Miss Bennet: Christmas at Pemberley, It’s a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play), Hamlet is generously sponsored by Pat and Ernest Kelly and the Sims Family Charitable Trust.
Audiences will enter the recently-restored art deco ramparts of Denmark’s ancient Elsinore Castle, complete with grand piano, as they are transported to the European Jazz Age of the 1920s, a period of wealth and glee between the Wars.
But the country’s King Hamlet has recently died. His child, the young Hamlet, returns home and is thrust into the harsh reality that his uncle, Claudius, has seized the throne and married his mother, Gertrude.
Haunted by the ghost of the King and directed to exact mortal revenge, Hamlet must consider whether to take action – feigning madness in a sublime examination of family, friends, loves, and human ethics.
While jazz fills the court with feelings of freedom, the virtuosic Hamlet delves into the romantic and emotional world of Chopin at the piano, highlighting the arguments between the rational/emotional, actionable/peaceful, forgivable/vengeful.
The play’s first line of “Who’s there?” remains incisively modern: Who are we, why are we here, and what must we do now?
“I am eager for audiences to meet Hamlet anew,” says Shine. “Like Romeo and Juliet, we often feel like we know the story of Hamlet, but when we take Hamlet at his words, we realize that his is a hero’s journey. We walk with Hamlet through his mourning, his decision-making, his action, and ultimately arrive with him at his peace.
“Hamlet is Shakespeare’s love story to humanity. It holds up what humans are and what amazing, beautiful potential humans have. This story is such a celebration of humanity. We need to hear humanity is capable of amazing things.”
The cast returns Eliza Pagelle (Stella in Streetcar Named Desire) to the Tabor Stage in the title role, Cheleen Sugar-Duckworth as Ophelia, Michael Khanlarian as Polonius, and Nicolas Dureaux Picou as Claudius and the Ghost, as well as welcoming TSC newcomer Francia DiMase as Gertrude. The ensemble includes Marquis Dijon Archuleta, Carleigh Boyle, Elijah Eliakim Hernandez, Irene Keeney, Kristina Hinako, Lauren Gunn, Logan McCarty, Hadley Evans Nash, and Allison Teegarden.
The design team includes Jeremy Allen Fisher (Lighting), Melanie Mulder (Props), Roger Hanna (Scenic), Joe Johnson (Sound Designer), and Austin Blake Conlee (Costumes). The production stage manager is Jasmine Simmers (A Streetcar Named Desire), and the assistant stage manager is Hallie Phillips.
Hamlet’s discounted ($22 tickets) Preview performance is Thursday, April 4 at 7:30 pm. Opening night is Friday, April 5 at 7:30 pm, with the price of tickets includes a post-show reception with the actors. Subsequent performances are on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 7:30 pm, and on Sundays at 3:00 pm through April 21. There is no performance on April 20 (the night of our Children’s Literacy Gala).
Thursday performances on April 4, 11, and 18 are Free Will Kids’ Nights when up to four children 17 years and younger may attend for FREE when accompanied by at least one, full-price-paying Adult Guardian.
Artistic and Production Bios
Marquis Dijon Archuleta (Laertes) TSC: most recently A Streetcar Named Desire, The Tempest, 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 (Guildenstern) TSC:A Streetcar Named Desire (Flores Woman), The Importance of Being Earnest (Music Hall Performer), TheTempest(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).
Austin Blake Conlee (Costume Designer) Select design credits: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Cinderella, Hamlet Replayed, Urinetown!, Twelfth Night, Cunning Little Vixen, Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and A Streetcar Named Desire. He previously served as Associate Designer at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and as Wig Designer at Utah Shakespeare Festival. Austin is Professor of Costume Design at Ramapo College of New Jersey. Education: University of Maryland, M.F.A. in Costume Design; and the University of Memphis, B.F.A.
Francia DiMase (Gertrude) Regional credits include King Lear, Cymbeline, Phaedra, The Winter’s Tale, Three Days of Rain, Scenes From an Execution, The Importance of Being Earnest, She Stoops to Conquer, Taking Steps, A View From the Bridge, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Directing Credits: Troilus and Cressida, The Sonnet Project. Education: The American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco.
Jeremy Allen Fisher (Production Manager/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.
Lauren Gunn (Marcellus/Player Queen/Osric) TSC: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Tempest, 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 TSC’s Feast of Crispian-South program. Lauren is a member and associate instructor with Dueling Arts International.
Roger Hanna (Scenic Designer) has designed sets for theater, opera, and dance in Japan, Israel, and across the U.S., including over 150 productions in NYC. TSC designs: The Importance of Being Earnest, A Streetcar Named Desire, The Glass Menagerie, The Tempest. Collaborators include Pulitzer Prize-winner Nilo Cruz, MacArthur “Genius” Susan Marshall, and 10-time Tony-winner Tommy Tune. Awards include a Lortel Award, two Drama Desk nominations, and a True West Award from the DCPA. As an educator, Roger taught and designed at major schools including Manhattan and Mannes Schools of Music, NYU, and Yale. He is currently the Head of Set Design at Colorado State University.
Elijah Eliakim Hernandez (Horatio) TSC: A Streetcar Named Desire (Steve), The Importance of Being Earnest (Lane/Merriman), The Tempest (Caliban). Credits in Texas: Coriolanus, Dracula, All My Sons, She Stoops to Conquer, The Impostor, Camino Real, Sense & Sensibility, and Treasure Island.
Kristina Hinako (Rosencrantz) TSC: The Importance of Being Earnest (Music Hall Performer), The Tempest (Miranda). Other credits: 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) TSC: The Tempest, 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 (Voltemand/Grave Digger’s companion) TSC: The Importance of Being Earnest, The Tempest, 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 (Polonius) is a founding member of TSC where roles include Macbeth, Lucky in Waiting for Godot, Roderigo in Othello, Prospero in The Tempest, and most recently Mitch in A Streetcar Named Desire. 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 (Francisco/Lead Player/Priest/Fortinbras) TSC: A Streetcar Named Desire (Collector/Strange Man), The Importance of Being Earnest (Algernon Moncrieff), The Tempest (Trinculo). Credits in Mississippi include Macbeth, Peter Pan, Quills, Much Ado About Nothing, Boeing Boeing, and Cabaret.
Melanie Mulder (Properties Designer) TSC credits: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Importance of Being Earnest, Ada and the Engine, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. Additional credits: The Color Purple, Jelly’s Last Jam, A Song for Coretta, Ruined, In the Heights, and Once on this Island at Hattiloo Theatre. Melanie has served as Props Designer on productions for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival (TN), Seaside Music Theatre (FL), Vineyard Theatre, Pearl Theatre, the New School for Drama, and The Signature Theatre (all NYC); Williamstown Theatre Festival (MA), Lake George Opera (NY), and Northern Stage (VT). Melanie is a native Memphian and received her B.F.A. in theatre from The University of Memphis.
Hadley Evans Nash (Bernardo/Player/Captain) TSC: A Streetcar Named Desire (Strange Woman), The Importance of Being Earnest (Music Hall Performer), The Tempest (Alonsa). 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.
Eliza Pagelle (Hamlet) TSC: A Streetcar Named Desire (Stella). Eliza is an actor/musician from Greenville, South Carolina, with a passion for heightened language and risk-taking art. Select New York/regional credits include Distance Theater: The Seagull (Nina); The Warehouse Theatre: Picnic (Millie); Fordham University: Indecent (Vera/Accordion); Texas Shakespeare Festival: Romeo and Juliet (Juliet/MD), The Comedy of Errors (Luciana), and The Taming of the Shrew (Bianca). Training: The Juilliard School of Music, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, and a B.A. in Theatre Performance & Music from Fordham University.
Hallie Phillips (Asst. Stage Manager) University of Memphis: Chroma, Carnival Vitas: Dance of the Animals. Shreveport Little Theatre: Little Shop of Horrors, Miracle on 34th Street. Union University Players: The Count of Monte Cristo, Decision Height. Hallie is an undergraduate student at the University of Memphis working toward a B.S. in Exercise and Movement Science with a Minor in Nutrition.
Nicolas Dureaux Picou (Claudius/Ghost) Recently with TSC: A Streetcar Named Desire (Stanley), The Importance of Being Earnest (Rev. Chasuble), The Tempest (Antonio), 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 TSC’s 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.
Stephanie Shine+ (Director) TSC directorial credits include The Importance of Being Earnest, Emily Dickinson: I Dwell in Possibility which she co-created with Denice Hicks, 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, 12 productions of Romeo and Juliet, and 14 Literary Salons. 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. 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.
Jasmine Simmers (Stage Manager) Stage Management 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. Jasmine is a graduate of the University of Memphis (B.F.A. in Theatre Design and Technology).
Cheleen Sugar-Ducksworth (Ophelia) TSC: A Streetcar Named Desire, The Importance of Being Earnest, The Tempest. 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 (Reynaldo/Gentlewoman) TSC: A Streetcar Named Desire (Eunice), The Importance of Being Earnest (Cecily Cardew), The Tempest (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.
+ member of the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers, Inc., an independent national labor union.
Box Office
Seating Section One tickets are $42 (Students $22/Seniors $37). Seating Sections Two and Three are $32 (Students $22/Seniors $27). The Preview performance on April 4 is $22 for all tickets. Thursday night performances are Free Will Kids’ Nights: up to four children 17 years and younger may attend for free when accompanied by at least one, full-price-paying Adult Guardian, while seats last, and must be purchased either over the phone or in person.
Tickets may be purchased online here or by calling our Box Office at (901) 759-0604, which is 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, St. George’s Episcopal Church, University of Memphis’ Department of Theatre & Dance, Wiseacre Brewery, WKNO Radio (91.1 FM Memphis), and Woodlawn.
