The Winter’s Tale

One of Shakespeare’s last plays,The Winter’s Tale is a story divided by time and space. A king with a tyrannical imagination destroys his family, and sixteen years later his long-lost daughter falls in love with a foreign prince. In the cosmological sense of law and order of the tragic first half and the chaotic wonderland of the pastoral-comic second half, Shakespeare asserts his power as a playwright with a sense of metatheatricality which is practically unmatched in the entire Shakespearean canon.This production of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale will treat the play as a two-part story, divided by time and space. The first part takes place in Sicilia, a prehistoric-tsarist kingdom bound by a claustrophobic ritualism and starkness. The second part takes place in the futuristic wonderland Bohemia, full of pickpockets, shepherds, and punk rock. Uniting the two are the cosmological forces of fate and prescience and the richly sentient and self-aware ensemble. Make sure to check out the Dramat website (http://www.dramat.org) for more details, including audition information. If you’re interested in working on the show in any capacity, please email our Producer, David Martinez, at david.a.martinez@yale.edu. He’d be happy to answer any questions or concerns you have about working with the Dramat, auditioning for The Winter’s Tale, or Yale in general.