Julius Caesar

by William Shakespeare

On stage at Ben Lomond’s Park Hall March 15 – April 8

BEN LOMOND — Mountain Community Theater is proud to present Julius Caesar, by William Shakespeare. Directed by Bill Peters the production opens Thursday, March 15 and runs four weekends through Sunday, April 8 at Ben Lomond’s historic Park Hall. Friday and Saturday performances are at 7:30 p.m.; Sunday matinees are at 2:00 p.m. Community Night is opening night, March 15, at 7:30 p.m. when all tickets are 2-for-$20.

There will be a Post-show champagne reception Friday, March 16. Join us for a talkback with the Director and cast after the performance on Sunday March 25 and Sunday April 1. General tickets are $20; Senior and Student tickets are $17.00. Tickets are available at www.brownpapertickets.com.

Some scholars believe Shakespeare chose to open his new Globe Theatre with Julius Caesar. The play is an uncompromising examination of how a society, faced with an internal drift to tyranny, can slip into civil war, and revert overnight to barbarism. A tragedy without clear-cut villains and heroes, Julius Caesar is as fresh today as it was on that opening night over 400 years ago.

Director Bill Peters teaches Acting, Directing, and Shakespeare in Performance at San Francisco State University. He received his training at the Yale School of Drama and has worked professionally in Canada (at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival), and throughout the United States.

Locally, he has directed often for Jewel Theatre, including Of Mice and Men, Three Days of Rain, Harper Regan, Dance of Death, and directed and co-produced an all-female Hamlet. Bill has also directed nine plays for Actors’ Theater Eight 10’s@ Eight.

Much of his work over the past fifteen years has centered on directing the works of Shakespeare. His MCT production of Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors — both the last time MCT presented Shakespeare and the last time Bill directed for MCT — was named Best Comedy of 2003 by the Santa Cruz Sentinel.

The cast comprises both MCT favorites and newcomers to MCT, including David Leach as Caesar, Nat Robinson as Antony, Peter Gelblum as Brutus, Andrew Davids as Cassius, Ann McCormick as Calpurnia, Scott Kravitz as Casca, Rick Kuhn as Cinna, Robin Aronson as Portia, Tom Goldrup as the Soothsayer, Rita Wadsworth as Artemidorus, April Bennett as Decius, Jocelyn McMahon as Lucia, Ward Willats as Trebonius, and Sam Richie as Octavius.

Mountain Community Theater (MCT) is the longest-running community theater in Santa Cruz County, started in 1982 by a collective of actors.

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MCT is a member-run non-profit organization that relies on support from its performances, season subscribers, and royalties from its own company-created script, Miracle on 34th Street, the Play. For more about MCT and its “Miracle,” visit www.mctshows.org.