Shakespeare at Winedale’s 2023 Summer Class takes the stage this July with performances of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Hamlet, and Cymbeline. The season will open on Friday, July 21, and run through Sunday, August 13. Performances take place on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 7:30 p.m., with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2:00 p.m. Tickets are $10. Patrons can purchase tickets through the Shakespeare at Winedale website, www.shakespeare-winedale.org or at the door.

The Shakespeare at Winedale program, housed in the College of Liberal Arts at UT, offers students a unique opportunity to explore Shakespeare’s rich and complex texts through the creative act of play. Established in 1970 as an undergraduate English course,

Shakespeare at Winedale has grown into a year-round program reaching many different groups across the state and country. Students in the summer program spend two months living in the Texas countryside, studying and performing three plays in the nineteenth century barn that has been converted into an Elizabethan theatre.

“This will be an epic season for Shakespeare at Winedale,” said program director James Loehlin, Shakespeare at Winedale Regents Professor of English and University Distinguished Teaching Professor. “We are performing three of Shakespeare’s most entertaining plays.  As You Like It is the perfect Winedale comedy, with its atmosphere of pastoral and celebration.  Hamlet, a profound and searching tragedy, is perhaps Shakespeare’s greatest achievement.  And Cymbeline is a delightful fairy-tale romance filled with some of Shakespeare’s favorite theatrical tropes. ”

As You Like It follows the intrepid Rosalind through the Forest of Arden, as love poems, mistaken identity, music, and laughter enliven her quest for her father and her true love, Orlando. This pastoral favorite considers what a world of constancy, love, and reconciliation can look like when it is beset with injustice, jealousy, and fear.

A dark and haunting tragedy, Hamlet is often hailed as the greatest play ever written. Tormented by his father’s untimely death, the young prince Hamlet is forced to grapple with his own sanity, mortality, and need for revenge. This multifaceted classic is at once a ghost story, a murder mystery, a tale of ill-fated love, and a renowned examination of the human condition

Cymbeline is an epic fairy tale set amidst the legends of ancient Britain. Princess Imogen secretly marries her true love, Posthumus, violating the command of her father, King Cymbeline. When Posthumusnflees in order to save his life, the lovers’ faith is tested by villains at home and abroad.

Thursday, July 28, is Fayette County Night; tickets for Fayette County residents are $5 at the door for the evening’s performance of Cymbeline. Door prizes will be raffled off for free at the end of the performance.

Our celebratory season finale and reception starts at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, August 13. Tickets are $30, which includes a catered dinner, pre-performance entertainment, and an evening performance of As You Like It.

For a full schedule of performances or more information about the Shakespeare at

Winedale program, please visit our website: www.shakespeare-winedale.org or email shakespeare@austin.utexas.edu.