Event

RLT's Staged Reading of "Queen Margaret"

Margaret of Anjou was a fierce, strong-willed, and independent woman both in actual 15th century England and also in Shakespeare's 16th century plays, but she has always been a supporting character in the stories of Henry VI and Richard III. Now, Margaret gets to be the star of her own story.

RLT's Queen Margaret was initiated because there is a serious lack of compelling and well-written women in Shakespeare's oeuvre, essentially leaving women out of some of the world's greatest plays. There are no titular female Shakespearean characters who are not defined by their relationships with their male co-stars (Romeo & Juliet, Troilus & Cressida, Antony & Cleopatra, whereas Othello, Hamlet, and Macbeth are not conjoined to their female lovers' names). RLT's Queen Margaret liberates some of Shakespeare's most poignant feminist writing from a series of plays about men and their experience of history, and illuminates that buried brilliance, amplifying and celebrating a female character who is complex, passionate, powerful, and one of the greatest antiheroes Shakespeare ever created, surpassing even the compelling depth, intoxicating charisma, and sympathetic power of Richard III.

Please join us for the first reading of this ground-breaking piece, and then stay for a talk-back with the artists creating this script. Delicious food and drink will be available to purchase from Gateway City Arts' Beer Garden before the show, and between the reading and the talk-back.