Othello returns to Shakespeare Festival

By Sabine Kortals

Lisa Wolpe and Emmy Award-winning actor Peter Macon debut with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival

Lisa Wolpe -- a FIRST (Faculty-in-Residence) Scholar at the University of Colorado Boulder -- brings a career of directing and acting in Shakespearean productions to her directorial debut with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. In her interpretation of Othello, audiences can expect “a show that is going to be heartbreaking and beautiful.”

Othello, which opens June 26 at the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre, also stars Los Angeles-based, Emmy Award-winning Peter Macon as Othello in his CSF debut. The Yale-trained television and stage actor previously played the noble and tragic title role with the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (2008) and the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis (2014).

“Peter Macon is a truly magnificent actor, a world-class Othello,” says Wolpe, an international advocate for women and diversity onstage. In 1993, she founded the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company, an award-winning, all-female company that has been featured on PBS, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and London’s International News. “His onstage identity is fluid, intensely powerful, intelligent, loving and dangerous...moving from monumental dignity to wild agony in a heartbeat, at once achingly tender and hard-hearted in the extreme.”

Indeed, in rehearsals this week, Macon demonstrates a powerfully physical performance, facilitated by Geoffrey Kent’s often percussive choreography. A CSF veteran -- and a favorite for his comic roles and ingenious direction -- Kent also plays Macon’s foil as Iago, one of Shakespeare’s most monstrous villains.

“Geoffrey Kent as Iago is right by his [Othello’s] side, walking on a razor's edge, maneuvering every slippery slope with an expert footing,” Wolpe says.

Desdemona, Othello’s audacious young wife, is played by the versatile Laura Baranick in another CSF debut performance. “We have two very strong, smart actresses in our leading roles,” Wolpe continues. “Laura Baranik is deep into discovering Desdemona’s doomed trajectory, and her conflicted defiance and despair, while Vanessa Morosco is redefining Emilia with a warrior’s wit and a canny resilience.”

This season’s “Othello” -- the CSF’s first outdoor production of the play since 1996 -- runs through Aug. 8. Single tickets start at $20 and discounts are available. Visit coloradoshakes.org for more information and to purchase tickets. Tickets may also be purchased from the CU Presents box office by calling 303-492-8008. The box office is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and is located in the University Club on the CU-Boulder campus.

CU Presents offers the best in performing arts on the University of Colorado Bouldercampus, including the Artist Series, the College of Music, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, Eklund Opera Program, the Holiday Festival, the Takács Quartet Chamber and Encore Series, and CU Theatre & Dance.

Sabine Kortals is interim director of communications at CU Presents.

June 18, 2015