Julius Caesar
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PRESENTED BY William Shakespeare's JULIUS CAESAR SHAKESPEARE THEATRE COMPANY Dear Friend, "i thank you for your pains and courtesy". Table of Contents I hope you will enjoy one of Julius Caesar, act 2, scene 2 Letter from Michael Kahn 3 Shakespeare’s most politically Out of the Past charged pieces, uniquely suited by Akiva Fox 4 to Washington, D.C., audiences. Synopsis 7 Julius Caesar reaches into the ThE 2011 ShakESPEaRE ThEaTRE ComPaNY About the Playwright 9 heart of Roman history to explore not only the consequences of Title Page 11 FREE FoR all iS PRESENTED BY conspiracy but also the complications of political Cast 12 ambition. David Muse’s original 2008 production Cast Biographies 13 was called “majestic” by the Washington Times and hailed as “electrifying” by DC Theatre Review. Direction and Design Biographies 21 I am pleased to make this wonderful production available to the Washington community for free, Shakespeare: with the generous support of sponsors like Target Caesar of Playwrights? 26 and donors like the Friends of Free For All. Shakespeare Theatre Company There could be no greater gift on the eve of this Board of Trustees 6 anniversary season than to celebrate its opening Shakespeare Theatre with you—friends new and old. I hope you will Company 24 return during the 2011-2012 Season to experience some of the exciting events we have in store. This Friends of Free For All 28 Ad Space season is sure to bring many memorable moments For the Shakespeare to STC stages, from the classic works of Regnard, Theatre Company 30 O’Neill and Goldoni to Shakespeare’s Much Ado Staff 32 About Nothing, The Two Gentlemen of Verona Happenings 33 and The Merry Wives of Windsor. With special “Bard’s Broadway” performances of The Boys from Audience Services 34 LEADERSHIP SUPPORT: Syracuse and Two Gentlemen of Verona (a rock opera), we celebrate the indelible influence of and The Real Estate Cover and photo on page 4 of Dan Kremer Shakespeare on the musical theatre community. Community Partners by Carol Rosegg. In addition to our mainstage productions this year, DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities please join us for the opening engagement of the Friends of Free For All Philip L. Graham Fund musical FELA! in September and October, John Hurt’s performance in Samuel Beckett's Krapp’s Last Tape and the imaginative puppetry of Basil Twist’s Petrushka. aDDiTioNal SUPPoRT: iN-kiND SUPPoRT: PEPCo Red Velvet Tangy Sweet I hope to see you in our audiences later this season. EXClUSiVE mEDia SPoNSoR: Best always, Michael Kahn Artistic Director, Shakespeare Theatre Company Take Metrobus or Metrorail to the Free For All. Visit the Trip Planner at MetroOpensDoors.com. 2 3 Photo of Dan Kremer and the 2008 cast of Julius Caesar by Carol Rosegg. is controlled by those who write it, and so Ironically, the conspirators murdered the became his own historian and playwright. He tyrant but failed to prevent tyranny. The was famously vain about his appearance and ghosts of history, powerful though they held almost monthly triumphs, symbolic may be, could not rule Rome. Caesar’s public processions that celebrate a military teenaged great-nephew and heir Octavius victories. When he returned to Rome after deftly stepped into the void created by winning a bruising civil war, he made the assassination, and began to shape the sure that his name was always followed future by controlling the past. First, he by the words “Father of his Country.” By officially changed his name to Julius Caesar, February of the year 44 BCE, the war-scarred immediately winning the loyalty of both THE Senate and people were all too happy to the people and Caesar’s military legions on name him dictator for life, the end result the historical strength of the name alone. of his lifetime of self-mythologizing. And when he split with his former ally Antony, Octavius embarked on a systematic In Shakespeare’s play, Caesar carefully PAST cultivates his image in order to dominate Rome. He refers to himself in public as “The past is “Caesar,” as though speaking of someone else. He punishes the tribunes, Murellus never dead.” and Flavius, not for attacking him but for defacing his “images.” And he calls himself propaganda campaign to depict Antony as For William Shakespeare, setting five Rome was the specter that haunted and “constant as the Northern Star,” all but an enemy of Rome. After defeating Antony of his plays in the Roman Empire was illuminated Shakespeare’s England. placing himself in the heavens. His rival and Cleopatra in battle, he finished the good business. English children read If Roman history was Shakespeare’s Brutus, by contrast, rises against Caesar job his great-uncle Caesar had begun; the the works of the great Roman writers touchstone for understanding because he feels subject to the force of Senate granted him dictatorial powers, and as the foundation of their classical contemporary history, it should come history. The ideal of the Republic, established the Roman Empire was founded. Caesar education, a new translation of the as no surprise that he chose to use it as when Brutus’ ancestor Lucius Junius Brutus could finally rest, and Octavius received historian Plutarch’s biography of the the subject for his greatest Roman plays. threw the king out of Rome, puts the the new name Augustus (“the lofty one”). great Romans sold well and plays about In his cycle of Julius Caesar and Antony assassin’s knife in Brutus’s hand as surely as Brutus’ beloved Republic was no more, Rome filled theatres. In fact, the name and Cleopatra, Shakespeare explores the his co-conspirators do. But because Caesar thanks to a leader who could fashion his of "Julius Caesar" appears in 17 different ways in which successful leaders employ established his historical image so perfectly own image and write his own history. In plays by Shakespeare, including his and reshape history to their advantage, in life, no assassin can truly kill him. Antony the end, Octavius won power more through plays about English history. Clearly, and unsuccessful leaders fail to tame or is able to use Caesar’s image as “Father of his public relations than through warfare. Shakespeare’s England (itself a escape history. The characters in these Country” to turn the people against Brutus burgeoning empire in the 1590s) saw plays practice or fatally forget George and drive him from Rome. When Caesar’s “The past is never dead,” wrote William itself as the intellectual and historical Orwell’s famous axiom: “Who controls ghost finally appears to Brutus before his Faulkner in his novel Requiem for a Nun. “It’s heir to Rome. “To Shakespeare’s original the past controls the future; who battle for Rome, he does so almost as the not even past.” The past lived on in the audiences,” writes the scholar Marjorie controls the present controls the past.” spirit of history, dragging Brutus down. As Elizabethan present through the staging Garber, “a play about ancient Rome his friends fall around him and he faces of Roman stories for English audiences was not an escapist document about a The real Julius Caesar all but invented his own death, Brutus can only marvel, and continues to live on in the staging of faraway world, but a powerful lesson in the art of consolidating political power “O Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet.” Shakespeare’s Roman stories in a future he ethics and statecraft. The Elizabethan by controlling historical narrative. could only imagine. The lesson of history view of history suggested that the When he served as a general in Gaul, he and its uses feels as current today as it did Romans provided models of conduct, delivered his reports to the Senate in the in Caesar’s and in Shakespeare’s time. that history taught, and that its lessons form of a literary drama with himself could—and should—be learned.” as the hero. He realized that history I Akiva Fox 4 75 Board of Trustees Synopsis Michael R. Klein, Chairman The great Roman general Julius Caesar has defeated his rival Pompey in battle, and the Robert E. Falb, Vice Chairman people cheer his return to Rome in triumph. As Caesar enjoys the festivities, a soothsayer Pauline Schneider, Secretary interrupts, warning Caesar to “beware the Ides of March.” John Hill, Treasurer Michael Kahn, Artistic Director Cassius and Brutus, two leading senators, watch the proceedings with trepidation. Cassius tests the principled Brutus’ opposition to Caesar by telling him that Caesar has ambitions to Ex-Officio Trustees John R. Hauge be named king. They hear loud cheers, and the senator Caska informs them that Caesar’s Nicholas W. Allard Stephen A. Hopkins Chris Jennings, Ashley Allen Lawrence A. Hough Managing Director right-hand man Mark Antony offered Caesar a crown three times, and each time Caesar Stephen E. Allis W. Mike House refused it. Unsettled, Brutus tells Cassius to speak with him again the next day. Emeritus Trustees Anita M. Antenucci Jeffrey M. Kaplan R. Robert Linowes*, Kathy Bailey Scott Kaufmann Later, as a fiery storm rages over Rome, Caska reports strange omens. Cassius claims that Founding Chairman Jeffrey D. Bauman Abbe D. Lowell they are signs that Caesar will be named king, and declares his intentions to resist. Caska James B. Adler Afsaneh Beschloss Kathleen Matthews decides to join Cassius in opposing Caesar. To bring Brutus over to their cause, Cassius Heidi L. Berry* Landon Butler Eleanor Merrill David A. Brody* forges letters hinting at Caesar’s ambition, and arranges for them to be dropped where Dr. Paul Carter Howard P.