Join us for an evening of Hamlet with our own Michael Shapiro, PhD from Columbia who taught Shakespeare for decades at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Loyola.  Michael will host a pre-event discussion and dinner at 5:30, with the show starting at 7:30.  

HAMLET :  Thursday, May 16

Courtyard Theater at Chicago Shakespeare
Optional Dinner & Talk at Riva starts at 5:30 P.M.
Hamlet Begins at 7:30 P.M.

Purchase Tickets Here 

Most people read Hamlet back in high school, or perhaps college, remembering it as the tragedy of an indecisive young man who swore to avenge his father’s murder by killing the murderer--his uncle and now step-father, but who could not make up his mind about whether, when, and how to do so.  Hesitation may not seem like a very exciting subject, but in dramatizing Hamlet’s plight, Shakespeare brought to life the internal and external obstacles to such vengeance, as well as the philosophical issues involved in any significant human action.  In so doing, he turned his hero’s dilemma into a gripping play and created one of the most intriguing characters in all of literature.  Our pre-event speaker, fellow alum Michael Shapiro, received his PhD from Columbia and taught Shakespeare for over four decades at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and more recently at Loyola.  In his brief introduction to the play, he will, among other things, argue for an intellectually heroic Hamlet and seek to defend him from charges of cowardly indecision.

Purchase Tickets Here