Directed by William Tate
Scenic and Lighting Design by Bruce Keller

Performs Thursday Nov. 19 (Free for PSU Students only), 20, 21, 24, 25, 27 and Saturday Nov. 28, 2009 at 7:30 p.m. 2:00 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 22 (no performance on Nov. 27) at Artists Repertory Theatre - Morrison Stage

Part dream, part nightmare, The Tempest creates a world in which nothing can be taken for granted, where nothing is as it seems. The play begins with a terrifying storm, moves through acts of treachery and romance, and ends in forgiveness and reconciliation. Or does it?

Ethereal and earthbound at once, Prospero’s enchanted isle is a laboratory in which the full capacity of human beings for good and ill is put under the theatrical microscope. An exiled duke, his daughter, his servants, a spirit and a savage slave, encounter a diverse set of castaways—among them a king, his son, Prospero’s treacherous brother, and two low lives, a drunken butler and a disreputable court jester. The island is suspended between spirit and beast, between Ariel and Caliban, between magic and the aspiration for freedom, on the one hand, and conspiracy and a desire for vengeance, on the other.

The Tempest reveals a poet and theatrical giant at the height of his powers.