Summer Season 

June 19 – September 2, 2012

The Merchant of Venice  

The Lion in Winter by James Goldman 

The Two Gentlemen of Verona 

Fall Season  

September 4 - November 25, 2012

Cymbeline 

King John 

The Merchant of Venice  

The Lion in Winter  by James Goldman  

The Two Gentlemen of Verona 

Holiday Season

November 27 – December 30, 2012

The 12 Dates of Christmas  by Ginna Hoben

The Santaland Diaries  by David Sedaris

A Christmas Carol  by Charles Dickens

Twelfth Night

Love’s Labour’s Lost

The Duchess of Malfi  by John Webster

Actors’ Renaissance Season

January 4 through April 7, 2013

Julius Caesar

The Country Wife by William Wycherley

Henry VIII

The Custom of the Country by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger

The Two Noble Kinsmen

Spring Season

April 10 through June 16, 2013

Twelfth Night

Love’s Labour’s Lost

The Duchess of Malfi  by John Webster

The American Shakespeare Center announces the line-up for its 2012-2013 Artistic Year, which will include 16 productions presented over 52 weeks in 5 separate repertory seasons, offering the largest number of plays per year by Shakespeare and Early Modern playwrights of any theatre in the world.

The lineup features nine plays by William Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice; The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Cymbeline; King John; Julius Caesar; Henry VIII; The Two Noble Kinsmen; Twelfth Night; and Love’s Labour’s Lost.

Also included are two plays by contemporaries of Shakespeare: The Custom of the Country, by John Fletcher and Philip Massinger, and The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster; one Restoration comedy, The Country Wife by William Wycherly; and a well-known modern offering, The Lion in Winter by James Goldman. 

Three holiday favorites will be featured in December: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, The Santaland Diaries by David Sedaris, and The Twelve Dates of Christmas by ASC actor Ginna Hoben.

“Our patrons can see more Shakespeare and Early Modern plays right here in Virginia than anywhere else on the planet,” said ASC Artistic Director Jim Warren. “In the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre, we perform 52 weeks a year in true repertory using Shakespeare’s staging conditions that bring out the fun, excitement, and humanity of some of the greatest plays in the English language.”

All ASC productions will be presented in the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Va., the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre and “one of the most historically important theatres in the world,” according to British scholar Andrew Gurr.

Believing that Shakespeare's stagecraft is as important as his wordcraft, the American Shakespeare Center has developed its own modern performance style based on how Shakespeare’s company performed plays at the original Globe and Blackfriars Playhouses in Renaissance London, an approach that the Wall Street Journal’s Terry Teachout calls “first rate theatre.”

Dubbed “shamelessly entertaining” by the Washington Post, ASC style includes having the audience and performers share the same light, seating the audience all around the stage and even on the stage itself, and having actors interact with audience members during the performance.

The 2012-13 Artistic Year concludes The Histories: The Rise and Fall of Kings, a 5-year series of all 10 of Shakespeare’s history plays. The series began in 2008 and will finish with King John and Henry VIII.

Pre-sale of tickets through subscription packages runs from March 1 through March 31. Single tickets go on sale on April 1. Information and tickets are available from the Blackfriars Playhouse box office by phone at 1-877-MUCH-ADO (682-4236) in person at 10 S. Market Street in downtown Staunton or online.

The ASC’s 2012/13 brochure, will be available by mail and online at the ASC website starting in mid-February.  The brochure contains descriptions of our plays and a full calendar of performances from June 2012 through June 2013.

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