HAMLET (2018)

by William Shakespeare
Directed by Monty Cole
June 7, 2018 – July 29, 2018
The Gift Theatre

After the death of his dad, a young black man named Hamlet returns home to grieve and seek revenge. Fighting against the injustice of his father’s murder and the powers that want him out of the picture, Hamlet quickly loses power and sanity. Directed by guest artist Monty Cole, The Gift’s retelling of Shakespeare’s great tragedy will crack open the mind of one of western drama’s most fascinating and entertaining characters.

Monty says, “Three months before starting rehearsal, I lost my dad. I was literally living in my childhood home while directing Hamlet, feeling like I was haunted by my father. The production ended up feeling like what would I do to have him back? And how a Black family is squeezed out of their own place of power in a white upper middle class world. I felt… there’s no way to make the most perfect Hamlet, but I can make the most personal Hamlet. I’m so thankful to this group of artists for withstanding that difficult period with me.”

ENSEMBLE: Daniel Kyri (Hamlet), Netta Walker (Ophelia), Robert Cornelius (Ghost/Polonius), Shanesia Davis (Gertrude), Gregory Fenner (Laertes), John Kelly (Claudius), Casey Morris (Horatio), Hannah Toriumi (Rosencrantz), Martel Manning (Guildenstern), Alexander Lane (Fortinbras/Marcellus/Gravedigger).

PRODUCTION TEAM
Scenic Design: William Boles
Lighting Design: Claire Chrzan
Sound Design: Jeffrey Levin
Costume Design: Samantha Jones
Props Designer: Eleanor Kahn
Fight Choreographer: Gaby Labotka

Stage Manager: Jason Shivers
Dramaturg: Michael Petersen PhD
Assistant Director: Abhi Shrestha

PRESS AND RECOGNITION

“I was mightily impressed, yet more so with another aspect of Cole’s small-cast “Hamlet,” which stars the exceptional young Chicago talent Daniel Kyri. He has staged a “Hamlet” that lets you feel more of a father-and-son bond than in any other “Hamlet” of my theater-going lifetime. And there have been many. Cole is an audacious and exceptionally smart young African-American director, very much inclined to throw rocks at the aging (and invariably white) theatrical establishment.” - Chris Jones, The Chicago Tribune

"Monty Cole’s stunning production of Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” now at The Gift Theatre, is an exercise in what it means to reinvent a classic. It’s a deeply personal, unapologetically black, and unapologetically irreverent production that takes the dusty tome of the four-hundred-year-old play and balances it squarely on the knife-like edge of what “Hamlet” has been and what “Hamlet” can be if it is approached with courage, understanding and heart." - Emma Couling, NewCity Stage