Tennessee Shakespeare Company’s expanded 2019-20 season offers a mix of Shakespeare plays and new American works
TSC’s 12th season features multiple regional premieres with new tiered ticket pricing and reserved seating
MEMPHIS, Tenn., August 7, 2019 ⎼ Tennessee Shakespeare Company, founded in Memphis and led by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, announced its 2019-20 performance season. Titled “Discover to Yourself,” the 12th season is the professional Actors’ Equity Association theater company’s largest yet. The lineup includes four full-stage productions, two new musical readings, its annual Southern Literary Salon, free and touring Shakespeare productions, a new Elizabethan Feast, a family show for all ages and a VIP Broadway Composer evening. Several productions will be Mid-South stage premieres.
“Our season’s theme ‘Discover to Yourself’ comes from Julius Caesar, which we are excited to stage for the first time in nearly a decade,” McCleary said. “We have expanded the season’s titles to include something for everyone: a diversity of playwrights, premieres, classics and musicals for all ages with the hope of inspiring audiences’ thoughtfulness, joy and humor. When theatre reflects these discoveries within us, we become encouraged to speak, to act, to welcome new ideas, and to offer and receive compassion.”
TSC’s season begins Sept. 10 with the adventurous fairy tale of Pericles in the third annual Free Shout-Out Shakespeare Series. The 80-minute touring production of Shakespeare’s rollicking late romance, directed by Taylor St. John, will perform in surprising indoor and outdoor venues throughout the Greater Memphis area, including Overton Square, downtown by the Mississippi River, Collierville Town Square and the Germantown Community Library. This year’s series will perform in 10 different venues over the course of 11 days. Performances are free to everyone, and no tickets are required to attend.
On TSC’s new Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage, located on Trinity Road in Memphis, McCleary will direct the fall of Rome’s democratic republic in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar in September and October. Also on the Tabor, Stephanie Shine, will direct the regional premiere of one of the most popular plays in America right now, the holiday comedy Miss Bennett: Christmas at Pemberley by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon – an imagined sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. In January and February, the regional premiere of Dwayne Hartford’s adaptation of Kate DiCamillo’s multi-generational Newbery Award-winning book The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane introduces an expensive rabbit to all walks of life, in which he learns how to love, lose that love and have the courage to love again. The journey even includes a stop in Memphis!
Tony Award-nominated musical composer Andrew Lippa (Broadway’s Big Fish and The Addams Family) makes a special appearance in Memphis with an intimate VIP performance featuring a wide selection of Broadway favorites. During Broadway Stories and Songs, guests will have the opportunity to meet with Lippa and enjoy his backstage stories over cocktails and dinner.
This year’s Southern Literary Salon explores the unlikely sisterhood of Zora Neale Hurston and Margaret Mitchell, two women writers who created very different literary masterpieces within a year of each other: Mitchell’s Gone with the Wind and Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Closing the performance season on April 25, fittingly the birthday weekend of William Shakespeare, is TSC’s new gala benefiting its innovative Education and Outreach Program. The Elizabethan Feast will open every space within TSC’s facility with Renaissance-themed food and drink, games and activities, including guests playing roles in some of Shakespeare’s famous party scenes.
Reserved Seating and Box Office
This is the first season TSC will offer reserved seats with tiered pricing for all shows on the Tabor Stage. Ticket prices range from $10 to $39 with Senior, Student, and Group discounts available. Free Will Kids’ Night returns for Julius Caesar and Miss Bennet: every Thursday night, during which groups with up to four children 17 years and younger may attend for free when accompanied by at least one paying, attending guardian. Free Will tickets are available only while seats last and must be purchased at the TSC Box Office.
More information, the Tabor Stage seating diagram and tickets for all 2019-20 productions are now available by visiting www.tnshakespeare.org or calling the TSC Box Office at 901-759-0604. TSC is located between Shelby Farms Park and Germantown Road at 7950 Trinity Road. Free parking. No refunds/exchanges. Casts and schedules are subject to change with notice.
Tennessee Shakespeare Company’s 2019-20 Season: “Discover to Yourself”
Pericles – Free Shakespeare Shout-Out Series
by William Shakespeare
directed by Taylor St. John
sponsored by Evans|Petree, P.C. and First Tennessee Foundation through ArtsFirst
Sept. 10-21, 2019
Ten indoor/outdoor venues throughout Shelby County
Tickets: Free
Julius Caesar
by William Shakespeare
directed by Dan McCleary
sponsored by Pat and Ernest G. Kelly, Jr.
Sept. 25 – Oct. 6, 2019
Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage at TSC, 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis
Tickets: $10-39
Broadway Stories and Songs: An Intimate Evening with Big Fish Composer Andrew Lippa
Oct. 26, 2019
Location to be announced to ticket-holders only.
V.I.P. Tickets and Dinner: $500
Miss Bennett: Christmas at Pemberley
by Lauren Gunderson and Margot Melcon
directed by Stephanie Shine
Dec. 4-22, 2019
Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage at TSC – 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis
presented by special arrangment with Dramatists Play Service, Inc.
Tickets: $10-39
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane
by Dwayne Hartford, based on the novel by Kate DiCamillo
sponsored by Independent Bank
Jan. 28 – Feb. 16, 2020
Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage at TSC – 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis
presented by special arrangement with The Dramatic Publishing Company, Inc. of Woodstock, IL
Tickets: $15-29
Southern Literary Salon: The Unlikely Sisterhood of Zora Neale Hurston and Margaret Mitchell
Feb. 23, 2020
Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage at TSC – 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis
Tickets: $15-27
The Elizabethan Feast
benefiting TSC’s Education and Outreach Program
April 25, 2020
Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage at TSC – 7950 Trinity Road, Memphis
Tickets: $125 per person or eight-guest sponsorships (Platinum/Gold/Silver)
Booming Education and Outreach Program
Also throughout the season, TSC continues to grow its vast Education and Outreach Program, now nationally recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts for both its work in underserved school populations and with incarcerated youth in Memphis’ juvenile justice system.
TSC estimates its teachers and artists will create more than 35,000 student interactions in more than 50 schools throughout Shelby County, the state and country this season with innovative programming that includes The Romeo and Juliet Project (literacy and anti-violence residency and performances), the U.S. tour of Twelfth Night (featuring anti-bullying themes and playshops developed by Colorado Shakespeare Festival), an expanded Feast of Crispian-South program (for military veterans in partnership with the Memphis Veterans Affairs Hospital), the Juvenile Justice Residency, seven different residencies/playshops for youth, summer camps and adult acting classes.
Contact TSC Education Manager Carmen-maria Mandley for more information at 901-759-0620 or carmenmandley@tnshakespeare.org.
Sponsors and Partners
TSC’s generous sponsors and partners of its season, productions, and Education and Outreach Program include FedEx, International Paper, ArtsMemphis, Tennessee Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts and Arts Midwest, First Tennessee Foundation through an ArtsFirst grant, Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, Independent Bank, Evans|Petree, P.C., Plough Foundation, the family of Pat and Ernest G. Kelly, Jr., Nancy R. Copp, the family of Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor, C. Cato Ealy, the Barbara B. Apperson Angel Fund, the Dunbar Abston Fund for Sustainable Excellence, University of Memphis’ Department of Theatre & Dance, Shelby County Schools, Germantown and Collierville Municipal School Districts, Memphis Juvenile Justice System, Memphis VA Hospital, the Benjamin Hooks Library, and the Germantown Library.
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/composers; and to providing innovative educational and training programming.
Founded in 2008 by Producing Artistic Director Dan McCleary, Tennessee Shakespeare Company is Memphis’ first and 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. The company is in the midst of its $6 million Brave New World capital campaign.
TSC has engaged its community with 45 site-specific plays and events for over 50,000 patrons. Its ground-breaking Education program has reached 120 schools across nine states, totaling over 250,000 student interactions.
The Education Program has achieved a high regional and national profile, partners annually with all local school systems, and this year is a recipient of two National Endowment for the Arts/Arts Midwest’s Shakespeare in American Communities grants: one for The Romeo and Juliet Project in underserved local schools, and the other for expanded residencies with local incarcerated youth (TSC is one of just seven U.S. theatres to be awarded).
