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Kate Eastman

The Taming of the Shrew

July 19, 2026

What ultimately distinguishes this production is its refusal to flatten Shakespeare into a contemporary thesis. It neither apologizes for the play's misogyny nor sensationalizes it. Instead, Otto trusts that audiences are capable of holding competing truths in their minds simultaneously: that "The Taming of the Shrew" is uproariously funny, dramatically exhilarating, and profoundly unsettling. In embracing the play's ambiguities rather than escaping them, Shakespeare CSE has launched its "Shakespeare Entirely" series with a production that is not only intellectually invigorating but also enormously entertaining—a reminder that the greatest classics endure not because they provide easy answers, but because they continue asking impossibly difficult questions with inexhaustible theatrical delight. [more]

Lear: That Old Man I Used to Know

September 14, 2019

Hopkins had added selections from Lewis Carroll (references to the Jabberwock and “The White Knight’s Song: The Aged Age Man,” the poem which gives her the new title), Emily Dickinson (“I’m Nobody! Who are you?”), Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ulysses” (“To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield”), and unidentified poems from Dylan Thomas. Aside from the fact that these are several centuries newer, all of these have a different rhythm than Shakespeare’s Lear. The music credits include Satie’s “Gymnopedie” No. 1, Chopin’s “Nocturne in E minor,” excepts from Beethoven’s Symphony No. 7 and Piano Sonata No. 23 in F minor, and “Ombra mai fu” from Handel’s opera Serse. The most outstanding problem is that we have other associations with this material so that they stick out like a sore thumb. [more]