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Lowell Davies Festival Theatre
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Barry Edelstein
The Old Globe announced it will present an ambitious, large-scale project including a new two-play adaptation of Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III, together with a yearlong program of citywide arts engagement and humanities events. Noted Shakespearean director and Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Barry Edelstein adapts and directs Henry 6, which will be presented as part of the theatre’s 2023 Season and will be the centerpiece of the 2023 Summer Shakespeare Festival in the outdoor Lowell Davies Festival Theatre. The production will mark the Globe’s completion of the Bard’s canon. In celebration of this milestone, The Old Globe, one of the country’s leading Shakespeare theatres, will present an array of free, citywide arts engagement and humanities events leading up to and accompanying Henry 6. The theatre will also offer reduced-price and no-cost tickets to maximize access for San Diegans. Henry 6 will include opportunities for interested San Diegans to participate in the making of the production.
Henry 6 is made possible by a generous grant from The Roy Cockrum Foundation. The Old Globe’s arts engagement programs are supported by Price Philanthropies, Qualcomm, U.S. Bank, and Viasat, with additional support by La Jolla Kiwanis Foundation. Globe Teaching Artists are supported by the Ann Davies Fund for Teaching Artists.
William Shakespeare (Playwright), 1564–1616, was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's preeminent dramatist. During his career he wrote 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and other verses. His body of plays consists of the tragedies Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, Romeo and Juliet, Timon of Athens, Titus Andronicus, and Troilus and Cressida; the comedies All’s Well That Ends Well, As You Like It, The Comedy of Errors, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Measure for Measure, The Merchant of Venice, The Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, and The Two Noble Kinsmen; the romances Cymbeline, Pericles, The Tempest, and The Winter’s Tale; and the histories Henry IV Parts I and II, Henry V, Henry VI Parts I, II, and III, Henry VIII, King John, Richard II, and Richard III. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.
Barry Edelstein (Director) is the Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director of The Old Globe and is a stage director, producer, author, and educator. He has directed nearly half of the Bard’s plays. His Globe directing credits include The Winter’s Tale, Othello, The Twenty-seventh Man, the world premiere of Rain, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Hamlet, and the world premiere of The Wanderers. He also directed All’s Well That Ends Well as the inaugural production of the Globe for All community tour. In January he oversaw the Globe’s inaugural Classical Directing Fellowship program. He most recently directed The Tempest with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall. As Director of the Shakespeare Initiative at The Public Theater (2008–2012), Edelstein oversaw all of the company’s Shakespearean productions as well as its educational, community outreach, and artist-training programs. At The Public, he staged the world premiere of The Twenty-seventh Man, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, and Steve Martin’s WASP and Other Plays. He was also Associate Producer of The Public’s Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino. From 1998 to 2003 he was Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company. His book Thinking Shakespeare, which was rereleased in a second edition in June, is the standard text on American Shakespearean acting. He is also the author of Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions. He is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.
Freedome Bradley-Ballentine, The Old Globe’s Associate Artistic Director and first Director of Arts Engagement, has been in San Diego for seven years, but his impact on the community has been unforgettable. His work forges social connections with economically, geographically, and culturally diverse communities throughout the county, making the Globe truly accessible for all and facilitating the Globe’s commitment of making theatre matter to more people. Since joining the Globe, he has implemented dozens of new in-person and online programs, from the newest The H6 EPIC Workshop Seriesas an opportunity for San Diegans to get involved with the Henry 6 production, and Reflecting Shakespeare for people experiencing incarceration, to free Community Voices playwriting workshops, and art collaborations with artists and community called coLAB. Other innovative programs include Word Up!, Bard Basics, Behind the Curtain, Breaking Bread, and the Shakespeare in Prisons Conference 2018. He leads the free Globe for All Tour, which brings professional Shakespeare to underserved and diverse multigenerational audiences in neighborhoods throughout the region. It is now a national model for accessible theatre. On campus, he developed AXIS plaza programs, Pam Farr Summer Shakespeare Studio for teens, and Globe Learning professional development opportunities; he transformed Behind-the-Scenes Tours, Free Student and Senior Matinees, Sensory-Friendly Initiatives, and School in the Park; and he helped start the Technical Center internships and professional development programs. Prior to his arrival in San Diego, Bradley-Ballentine led the theatrical program for SummerStage and the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater in Central Park, both part of CityParks Foundation. He was also Creative Director of Creative Stages Entertainment, developing and producing Off Broadway theatre. He holds an M.F.A. in Theatre from Sarah Lawrence College and a B.A. in Education from New York University, and he served in the United States Peace Corps in Ethiopia.
Katherine Harroff, Associate Director of Arts Engagement, has worked with The Old Globe since 2011, when she first originated the Community Voices playwriting workshop. From 2011 to 2014 Harroff instructed and produced short-play workshops and presentations throughout San Diego County. In 2016 she rejoined the Globe and the newly formed Arts Engagement Department under the helm of Freedome Bradley-Ballentine and began managing the Community Voices program as it expanded to new genres of performance development. In 2016 she developed and implemented the coLAB workshop program, an offering that partners communities with professional devising artists, with a culminating goal of producing an original play collaboratively. In 2017 she took over producing the Globe plaza performing arts series AXIS and has since curated over 15 different community-driven events for large Balboa Park–attending audiences. Harroff is also a playwright, director, and performing artist. In her spare time, she acts as Artistic Director and Head Playwright for the local community-based theatre company Circle Circle dot dot. In 2019 she was awarded a local playwright commission from The Old Globe.
Erika Beth Phillips is an Arts Engagement Programs Manager at The Old Globe, where she focuses on Reflecting Shakespeare, a program she co-developed for rehabilitation with men and women experiencing incarceration. For The Old Globe, Erika has also served as Co-Director of the Pam Farr Summer Shakespeare Studio, an on-site 4-week intensive that combines Shakespeare performance study with the creation of original work. Erika served as Education Programs Manager for Playwrights Project, and was a lead teaching artist there as well as with Arts 4 Learning (where she served as a Teaching Artist Mentor), and La Jolla Playhouse (where she co-led large city-wide performing initiatives such as Excavating Escondidofor the 2013 WithOut Walls Festival). Erika is also an accomplished actor and playwright having performed throughout San Diego, regionally throughout the US and UK, Off-Broadway and on the London Fringe.
