Hamlet and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to Play in Rep at PA Shakespeare Festival

Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival will present Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, performed in rotating repertory by a single ensemble. The same actors, and the world of Elsinore, will transform from tragedy to comedy. Performances are July 9-August 3 at Labuda Center for the Performing Arts at DeSales University, with Hamlet officially opening on July 11 and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead on July 19.

In Shakespeare’s tragedy, prince Hamlet’s life shatters when his father’s ghost exposes a murderous betrayal by his uncle Claudius, who has stolen the throne and wed Hamlet’s mother. In Tom Stoppard’s Tony Award-winning Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, two minor characters from Hamlet grapple with their roles in a story they don’t understand—flipping coins, missing cues, and questioning reality itself.

The cast is led by Biko Eisen-Martin (Table17, Soft) as Hamlet, Sean Close (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival’s The Play That Goes Wrong) as Rosencrantz, and Maboud Ebrahimzadeh (The Invisible Hand) as Guildenstern.

They’re joined by Taysha Marie Canales as Horatio, Arrianna Daniels as Marcellus/Tragedian, Akeem Davis as Claudius, Darin F. Earl II as Bernardo/Tragedian, Grace Gonglewski as Gertrude, Ian Higgins as Tragedian, Eric Hissom as Polonius, Relena Kiser as Voltemand/Ensemble, Shawn Laub as Ensemble, David Andrew Laws as Renaldo/Tragedian, Ian Merrill Peakes as Leading Player, David Pica as Laertes/Tragedian, Ryan Plunkett as Tragedian, Pepin as Ophelia, and Damien J. Wallace as King Hamlet/Tragedian.

Hamlet is directed by Lindsay Smiling and Jason King Jones helms Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The creative team also includes scenic and lighting designer Brian Sidney Bembridge, costume designer Nancy Leary, sound designers Elizabeth Atkinson (Hamlet) and David M. Greenberg (Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead), text coach Greg Leaming, intimacy director Kim Carson, and fight director Ian Rose.