Tickets on sale now for outdoor productions of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Pericles, the musical Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine, and Athol Fugard’s “Master Harold”… and the Boys
June 17, 2025 – SANTA CRUZ, CA—Santa Cruz Shakespeare (SCS), a nationally recognized professional theatre company in Santa Cruz County with deep local roots that go back more than 40 years, today announced the cast and production teams for its 2025 Summer and Fall Season that includes two plays by William Shakespeare, a musical by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine and a play by Athol Fugard, as well as the popular Fringe Series of two staged readings and two performances of the apprentice show.
Performances will take place July 13 through September 20 in the Audrey Stanley Grove at Santa Cruz’s DeLaveaga Park. Tickets prices range from $20 to $75 and are available at santacruzshakespeare.org. The seasonal box office is open for phone orders Tuesday through Friday from 12 p.m. to 4 p.m. at 831-460-6399 and two hours prior to every performance.
SCS’s performance calendar can be found here: https://santacruzshakespeare.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/Calendar-for-Brochure.jp
CAST AND PRODUCTION TEAMS
Into the Woods by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine
Opening Night July 19, 2025, 8 p.m.
Director Jerry Lee
Music Direction Luke Shepherd
Starring Charlotte Munson as the Witch, Tyle Nye as the Baker and Melissa WolfKlain as the Baker’s Wife. The ensemble includes: Mai Abe, Jordan Best, Alex Cook, Daniel Harray, Justin Joung, Elliot Sagay, Lori Schulman and Ciarra Stroud.
Production team includes Michael Schweikardt and Bennett Seymour (Scenic Design), Austin Blake Conlee (Costume Design), Marcella Barbeau (Lighting Design) and Barry G. Funderburg (Sound Design).
Director’s Note
“[Into the Woods] fits beautifully in a Shakespeare festival season. It’s rooted in heightened language. Characters soliloquize, wrestle with choices, and engage directly with the audience. Its themes run deep. The questions it raises are timeless. We wanted to craft a piece that felt organically born of the Grove. That celebrated the natural beauty of this performance space. We decided to set our production in America—Santa Cruz—at the end of the Gilded Age. Our fairy tales feel less like rustic German folklore and more like stories that have journeyed across the ocean, over the Rockies, and settled on the California coast. We wanted these characters to feel rooted in this space, like they grew here. And with one little toe still dipped in antiquity of classic fairy tales.”
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
Opening Night July 18, 2025, 8 p.m.
Director Paul Mullins
Starring Mike Ryan as Nick Bottom and Justin Joung as Puck. The ensemble includes: Alex Cook, Jono Eiland, Daniel Harray, Corey Jones, Lily Kops, Charlotte Munson, Tyler Nye, Allie Pratt, Kavin Pugazhenthi, ML Roberts, Desiree Rogers, Nick Rossi, Elliot Sagay, Shelby Denise Smith, Ciarra Stroud, Paige Lindsey White, Melissa WolfKlain, Lincoln Best and Joseph Pratt Lukefahr
Production team includes Michael Schweikardt & Bennett Seymour (Scenic Design), B. Modern (Costume Design), Marcella Barbeau (Lighting Design) and Mackenzie Adamick (Sound Design).
Director’s Note:
“When [A Midsummer Night’s Dream] was published in the Quarto in 1600 the title page states that the play “hath been sundry times publicly acted”. The play has continued to be “sundry times publicly acted” for these past four hundred years. It is the most frequently produced of Shakespeare’s plays. For many it is the first Shakespeare play seen in performance and remains for many their favorite. Midsummer stands among Shakespeare’s greatest plays due to its astonishing blend of imagination, insight into human nature, and timeless theatrical appeal.”
Pericles by William Shakespeare and George Wilkins
Opening Night July 31, 2025, 8 p.m.
Director Charles Pasternak
Starring Paige Lindsey White as Pericles and Allie Pratt as Marina. The ensemble includes: Jono Eiland, Corey Jones, Lily Kops, Kavin Pugazhenthi, ML Roberts, Desiree Rogers, Nick Rossi, Mike Ryan and Shelby Denise Smith.
Production team includes Michael Schweikardt and Bennett Seymour (Scenic Design), Erin Reed Carter (Costume Design), Marcella Barbeau (Lighting Design) and Mackenzie Adamick (Sound Design).
Director’s Note:
“Pericles is one of my favorite plays. It stands powerfully with The Winter’s Tale and Cymbeline as a late triumvirate in Shakespeare’s career in which the traditional lines of comedy and tragedy blur, ambiguity is magnified, forgiveness is paramount, and miracles are possible. We need the stories of Shakespeare’s late plays now more than ever. They’re complicated, wild, sexy, and fierce… they don’t let us off the hook; they don’t let us box up good and evil easily. They ask a lot of us. But their return is great.”
“Master Harold”… and the Boys by Athol Fugard
Opening Night September 5, 2025, 7 p.m.
Director Rebecca Haley Clark
Starring Corey Jones as Sam, Nick Rossi as Haley and Elliot Sagay as Willy.
Production team includes Michael Schweikardt and Bennett Seymour (Scenic Design), B. Modern (Costume Design), Marcella Barbeau (Lighting Design) and Luke Shepherd (Sound Design and Composition).
Director’s Note:
“As we watch the massive shifts in the world rock the very foundations beneath our feet, we are confronted with a call to action: What am I going to do about all this? Working on Master Harold…and the Boys, has further solidified that gnawing question of what would I do if I were in those circumstances, the question that always reveals itself during times of immense change and social upheaval. Who am I really? This play forces us to consider three different time periods. 1950. The time period of the play itself, just after the enactment of the system of apartheid in South Africa. 1982. The time period in which the play was written, less than a decade before the official end of apartheid. And 2025. The here. The now. The crossroads. It also forces us to consider space. What does my tiny surfer beach community have to do with a tea shop in Port Elizabeth, South Africa?”
SCS’s Fringe Series
The 2025 Season includes the Fringe Series, comprised of two staged readings and two performances of its apprentice show, Betrayal by Harold Pinter, happening Tuesday nights in August at 7 p.m. Price is pay-what-you-will.
Learn more at: https://santacruzshakespeare.org/2025-summer-season/
Santa Cruz Shakespeare Membership
Become an annual member of SCS to support the entire 2025 season and ShakesEDU. SCS memberships range from $50-$10,000 with tiered benefits including pre-sales, ticket discounts, early admission, free parking, free food and drink, cushioned seats, and other benefits. For those under 25 years old, join the Hathaway Club and receive one half price regular ticket to any three shows. Learn more: https://santacruzshakespeare.org/member/.
About Santa Cruz Shakespeare
Featuring professional actors from around the country and inspired by deep local roots that go back more than 40 years, Santa Cruz Shakespeare stages bold productions of the plays of Shakespeare and other great playwrights that stimulate audiences’ senses and spark their imagination.
