Antony & Cleopatra

A Retractatio of the love affair that crosses continents. One of Shakespeare’s later plays tackles some of the geo-politics of antiquity, the passionate connection between two great leaders, while spanning the Mediterranean from Rome to Asia Minor and beyond to Egypt. All in all an epic journey.

performance dates & tickets

Antony & Cleopatra will premiere October 7th at the Internationales Theater Frankfurt with performances throughout the 21-22 season. Please reserve your tickets at Internationales Theater Frankfurt.

Stay tuned for upcoming performance dates!

DIRECTOR'S NOTE

This production of Antony and Cleopatra is a sensual journey through the Ancient world. Our focus, as always at Shakespeare Frankfurt, is to first tell the story. To do this we put 6 actors and 6 structures on a stage, with a dynamic light and sound design, together with Shakespeare’s text we bring to life a place and time rich with history, legend and an epic love affair.

The actors, Varvara Pomoni, Jim Phetterplace Jr., Jonathan Roth, James Bailey, Susanna Mauer and Antonia Görge all have extensive professional credits and are core ensemble members of Shakespeare Frankfurt. Together they play over 20 different characters, all with depth and specificity.

I wanted a clean and sleek production with little to get in the way of the audience taking in the story. To achieve this the Japanese concept of Ma (negative space) was used in the design to allude to place and time while giving the actors a space to work in with levels and a variety of playing spaces, this creates a form of storytelling that has pace, continuity, and structure while also asking the audience to explore their own imaginations. Shakespeare borrowed most of his narrative directly from Plutarch, we used this as a starting point but made a small handful of adjustments to the text to support the design of a 6-person team of performers.

Covid put us all in the arts on the backfoot and we hope this epic journey will remind our audiences that live storytelling is an important part of who we are and where we come from.

PJ Escobio
Artistic Director
Shakespeare Frankfurt
03/10/21

CAST

Varvara Pomoni
Varvara comes from Athens, Greece. She has trained in various theatre institutions in Germany, Austria and England on Meisner Technique, Improvisation, Shakespeare's Text and on Meyerhold's Biomechanics & Physical Theatre. This is her ninth production with Shakespeare Frankfurt having played the roles of Kent (King Lear) in 2021, Lady Macbeth (Macbeth) and Emilia (Othello) in 2019 and acted in Shakespeare Frankfurt's film Spiritus Vitae - The Breath of Life. She also performs in Huck Finn, a play for young audiences produced by The English Theatre Frankfurt. In Antony & Cleopatra, she plays the roles of Cleopatra, Menas, Maecenas and Soothsayer.
Jonathan Roth
Jonathan Roth has been active as a performer in various companies for over 15 years now, including Zettels Theater, Theater 3D and Staatstheater Darmstadt. He has appeared in numerous German Shakespeare productions and played the title roles in “Pericles”, "Henry V" and "Hamlet”. With Theater 3D, he is mainly engaged in the production of documentary theatre plays. His first work as a playwright, "Dichterliebe", in which he also portrayed the poet icon Heinrich Heine, was awarded the jury prize at the MADE.Festival Hessen. When not on stage, he works as a lecturer at the University of Mainz, where his research and teaching focuses on cultural policy and independent theater. He joined Shakespeare Frankfurt in 2021 for "King Lear" at the Botanical Garden, where he played the Fool. “Antony & Cleopatra” is his second production with the company, where takes on the roles of Proculeius, the Clown, a pitiful messenger and last but not least the notorious Antony.
Susanna Mauer
Susanna Mauer (she/her) is an actress and singer currently based in Frankfurt. Her love for theatre developed at an early age and she began voice, dance and acting training when she was just 6 years old. After spending her early childhood working and training in the UK, she moved to Germany with her family and received an acting scholarship from the Peter Ustinov Foundation. As a teenager she appeared in several productions at the English Theatre and the Gallus Theater in Frankfurt. In 2020 Susanna graduated from the University of Cambridge, where she was an active member of the student drama scene and participated in 35 productions alongside her degree including shows at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival such as Rust the Musical (Best Musical of the Fringe, The Derek Awards) in 2019. This is her fourth project with Shakespeare Frankfurt, having played Dorine in rehearsals for Molière’s Tartuffe, Regan in the summer 2021 production of King Lear and, most recently, appearing in Travelers, Fools and Thieves at the GoWest Open Air Theatre Festival.
James E Bailey
James E. Bailey was born in Los Angeles, California and loves to entertain. Since moving to Frankfurt, he's had the opportunity to perform with Shakespeare Frankfurt in The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Spiritus Vitæ, and the monologue project. In addition to Shakespeare Frankfurt, James has also performed with Frankfurt English Speaking Theater in Our Country’s Good, the English Theatre Frankfurt in Huck Finn, and the Army MWR in productions of Beauty and the Beast and Blue Door. In addition to acting, James also enjoys music and provided the music for Shakespeare Frankfurt’s production of Twelfth Night. After the uncertainty of 2020, James is excited to return to the stage in this production of Antony & Cleopatra.
Antonia Görge
Antonia is a Frankfurt native with a background in musicology and literary studies and over a decade of experience in English, German and sometimes multilingual theatre productions as an actor, singer, and sometimes tech. With Shakespeare Frankfurt she has played roles as diverse as Juliet, Prospero and Peaseblossom in 2016s Hortus Inclusus - Shakespeare in the Garden, Miranda and Sebastian in The Tempest, Helena and Robin Starveling in Midsummer Night's Dream and Paulina from The Winter's Tale in the feature film Spiritus Vitae - The Breath of Life. Other projects of the 2021/2022 season include a multimedia triptych of Walter Hasenclever texts with the silent film Die Pest as a highlight (Kulturhaus Frankfurt), a bilingual production of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol (Kulturhaus Frankfurt), and Bertold Brecht's Der Kaukasische Kreidekreis with Megalomania Theater Frankfurt.
Jim Phetterplace Jr
Jim has been performing and directing since the late 1980s. With Shakespeare Frankfurt, in its various guises, he has performed Stephano and Alonso in The Tempest, Orsino in Twelfth Night, Rodorigo in O and Macduff in Macbeth. He was in the company’s first film, Spiritus Vitae – The Breath of Life, as Nurse in Romeo and Juliet. He enjoyed portraying Falstaff, Iachomo, Bolt and the Duke in the recent ensemble production of Travellers, Fools and Thieves. In Germany, he has additionally performed for Oper Frankfurt, Frankfurt English Speaking Theatre and the Interkulturelle Bühne (in German), and directed for FEST, the English Theatre Frankfurt, and the European Central Bank Theatre Ensemble. He has appeared in two German-language short films and one music video. As a playwright, he is completing his adaptation of three works by Native American poet Beth Brant, an homage to his Cree Nations mother.

Cast and Characters (in order of their appearance):

Varvara Pomoni: CLEOPATRA (queen of Egypt), Soothsayer (of Egypt), Messenger, Menas (pirate captain in league with Pompey), Maecenas (advisor to Caesar),

Jonathan Roth: Marc ANTONY (general and triumvir of Roman Republic), unlucky Messenger, Proculeius (diplomat for Caesar), Clown (poison-maker for Cleopatra)

James E. Bailey: Dercetus (soldier in Antony’s army), Mardian (attendant to Cleopatra), ENOBARBUS (soldier and advisor to Antony), Messenger, Dolabella (diplomat for Caesar),

Antonia Görge: Iras (attendant to Cleopatra), Messengers, Octavius CAESAR (triumvir of Roman Republic, adopted son of Julius Caesar and future emperor of Roman Empire), Canidius (lieutenant-general to Antony),

Susi Mauer: CHARMIAN (attendant to Cleopatra), Messenger, POMPEY (rebel against the triumvirat), Agrippa (admiral to Caesar), Octavia (sister to Caesar), Scarus (soldier for Antony), Thidius (diplomat for Caesar)

Jim Phetterplace Jr.: Philo (soldier in Antony’s army), EROS (attendant to Antony), Alexas (diplomat for Antony & Cleopatra), Messenger, LEPIDUS (triumvir of Roman Republic), Schoolteacher (ambassador for Antony & Cleopatra), Centurion (under Caesar)

CREW

PJ Escobio
PJ has directed for the English Theatre Frankfurt Huck Finn, Shockheaded Peter (Covid cancelled) and for next season will direct Girl with a Book by Nick Wood. As the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Frankfurt, he has directed the film Spiritus Vitae, The Breath of Life, and for the 2021-22 season is directing Travelers, Fools and Thieves, Antony and Cleopatra and next years Garden production As You Like It. Other plays he has directed for SF include, Trojan Women by Euripides, Shakespeare’s King Lear, Macbeth, Othello, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors (Covid cancelled) and An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. His production of The Pillowman by Martin McDonagh was at the Internationales Theater Frankfurt in the Fall of 2019. From 2015-18 he was the Director in Residence at The LOFT, where he directed Shakespeare in the Garden: Hortus Inclusus, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, Grounded by George Brandt and was the co-creator of Where. For 10 years he was the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Anyone? founded in New York City in 2005, where he directed, produced and/or performed roles from all but 5 of Shakespeare’s plays. He was the Associate Artistic Director of WordBRIDGE Playwright’s Laboratory. He also cast and directed BFA playwriting thesis projects for NYU’s Tisch school of the arts. He has taught Acting, Scene Study, Stage Combat and Shakespeare courses at the collegiate level as well as high schools and private institutions for over 20 years. He holds a Master of Fine Arts from the University of Missouri-KC in Acting and Directing.
Vera Mark
Vera has been involved with the theatre since she was a teenager. She has participated in numerous productions of FEST, the Frankfurt English Speaking Theatre, acting, crewing and directing. In 2016, Vera joined Shakespeare Frankfurt as Adrian in ‘The Tempest’; in the past few years she has served SF as stage manager and assistant director and in February 2020 played the part of Andromache in Euripides' 'Trojan Women' at the International Theatre Frankfurt. After steering audiences through the 2021 open air production of ‘King Lear’ as Front of House manager, she will now steer props and set pieces through the 21-22 production of ‘Antony & Cleopatra’