Colorado Shakespeare Festival announces 2027 season

BOULDER — Celebrating its 70th season, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival will return June 5 for a summer of Shakespeare on the University of Colorado Boulder campus.

The 2027 season features four Shakespeare classics in the festival’s two venues. Opening June 5 at the newly renovated Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” directed by Tim Orr, launches the season. The indoor Roe Green Theatre will host “Henry IV, Part 1,” directed by Kevin Rich. In June, Shakespeare’s tragedy “Hamlet,” directed by Wendy Franz, joins the outdoor lineup, followed in July by “Henry IV, Part 2,” also directed by Rich, in the Roe Green Theatre.

That indoor theater will debut new seating and enhanced sound. Last season, festival audiences returned to the Rippon Outdoor Theatre after a two-year renovation that improved seating, accessibility, lighting and sound and added patio seating and an atrium lobby with a café.

As the second-oldest Shakespeare festival in the nation, CSF celebrates the works of Shakespeare and other classic playwrights. The festival attracts thousands of attendees each year.

Season tickets are available at coloradoshakes.org, by phone at 303-492-8008 or in person at the CU Presents box office, which is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays. Single tickets will be available starting Dec. 1. The CSF website and box office have ticket details and a full performance schedule.

“A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will run June 5 through Aug. 1 at the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre. Seeking freedom from patriarchal expectations, four young Athenians flee into a deep, dark, magical forest, where the Fairy king orders the mischievous sprite Puck to administer a potion to confuse their affections. As King Oberon and his queen, Titania, spar over a young child, an inept troupe of players enters the wood to rehearse Pyramus and Thisbe, in preparation for mortal king Theseus’ wedding to Hippolyta. Love, sorcery, hijinks and trickery swirl into a celebration of self-discovery and transformation.

“Henry IV, Part 1” will run June 13 through July 31 at the Roe Green Theatre. Even as his father’s reign is threatened by upstart nobles, wayward Prince Hal haunts the tavern with boastful, comic Falstaff and consorts with thieves. King Henry IV rues the comparison between his unruly son and the powerful rebel Hotspur, but when civil war ignites, Hal proves a worthy heir to the throne in battle. The play ends on a cliffhanger, as the king plots his pursuit of the remaining rebels — and time stands ready to pursue its own relentless ends.

“Hamlet” will run June 27 through July 31 at the Rippon Theatre. Prince Hamlet returns to Denmark, where his father’s ghost reveals that he was murdered by his brother Claudius, who has taken the throne and married Queen Gertrude. Vowing revenge, the prince poses as a madman even as he investigates the crime. But the ruse portends tragedy for his beloved, Ophelia, for his country and for himself. Shakespeare’s gripping examination of the consequences of corruption and betrayal shines light on the challenge of protecting truth at a time when deception rules the day.

“Henry IV, Part 2” will run July 11 through Aug. 1 at the Roe Green Theatre. As King Henry IV grows ill and weak, young Prince Hal struggles to balance his old, delinquent life with his approaching ascension to the throne. The prince’s longtime fellow traveler, Falstaff, expects to gain favor and influence when his friend assumes the throne. But battle and responsibility have forever changed Hal’s outlook. By turns comic, wistful and grave, the second part in the Henriad saga reveals the march of time as the ultimate, inexorable arbiter of all things.

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