CYMBELINE - Opens July 4, 2025
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Glenn Havlan and Gaby Schneider
Friday July 4, Saturdays and Sundays July 5 - 20, 4PM
John Hinkel Park Amphitheater
Cymbeline is a dark fairy tale of love and loss, loyalty and betrayal, grief and survival, with multiple interwoven story lines that all converge in a final scene of forgiveness, reconciliation, and hope. It is a strange loop—a Mobius Strip on which two separated lovers travel at different speeds until they meet again, always moving forward yet returning to where they began.
William Shakespeare's epic romance, CYMBELINE, adapted and directed by Glenn Havlan and Gaby Schneider, presented by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley free-of-charge in the John Hinkel Park Amphitheater, weekends + holidays July 4th - July 20th at 4 p.m.
The beautiful Imogene, daughter of the torn Celtic British King Cymbeline and in love with Posthumus, now banished to Italy, must survive the plots of the treacherous Queen and her dastardly son Cloten, along with the interference of the meddling Romans and court intrigue, in order to save her love and the kingdom.
As one of Shakespeare’s lesser known works, this play will feel totally fresh even to many long-time Shakespeare fans, while still being easy for newer audience members to follow. The characters are largely archetypal, with personalities and motives that are immediately clear, yet they reveal greater depth and complexity as they develop over the course of the story.
CYMBELINE has something for everyone. If you’re a romantic who loves stories about childhood sweethearts defying their disapproving parents, lovers separated by tyranny and reunited by perseverance, and long-lost family members discovering each other by chance, this play is for you. If you’re a history nerd obsessed with the Roman Empire and/or the Celts, this play is for you. If you’re a feminist who wants to see men learning to treat women better, this play is definitely for you. If you want to see a thoroughly awful villain get a satisfying smackdown, this play is for you, and if you want to see a charming trickster villain go through real moral growth and feel remorse, this play is for you, too! It’s got journeys across the picturesque countryside, attempted witchcraft, mistaken identity, a severed head, and more. And it has the most principled, steadfast, and courageous heroine in all of Shakespeare.
CAST
Al Badger: Philario / Belarius
Marc Berman: Cornelius / gaoler
Patrice Binaisa: 1st Lord / Sicilius
Dominic Canty: Posthumus
Ryan Chu: Second Lord / Arviragus
Alexandra Fry: Imogen
Mark Goldman: Cymbeline
Emi Hegarty: Frenchman / Guiderius
Kenneth Matis: Cloten
Virgie Poole: Lady Helen / Soothsayer
Michele Sanner: Queen
Stanley Spenger: Pisanio
Jeff Trescott: Caius Lucius / Jupiter
Jean-Paul Zuhur: Iachimo
Costumes by Lyre Alston.
Set design by Kirsten Yamaguchi.
PRODUCTION
Glenn Havlan returns to Actors Ensemble after appearing in "Mothers All" in 2022 and adapting and directing their "Much Ado About Nothing" at Hinkel in July of 2024. Previously with AE, he played Peter Stockmann in "An Enemy of the People". He most recently performed this past February, in Hillbarn Theatre's production of "Daisy". The last four summers with the Curtain Theatre in Mill Valley, he appeared as Nick Bottom in "A Midsummer Night's Dream", Friar Laurence in "Romeo and Juliet", The Duke of Milan in "The Two Gentlemen of Verona" and Sir Toby Belch in "Twelfth Night". He acted in nine shows with the Marin Shakespeare Company and played Jaques in their 25th Anniversary production of As You Like It. Glenn has performed in and/or directed forty productions of twenty different Shakespeare plays. He founded two San Francisco companies, the Free Civic Theater and the Theater of Others, staging fifty productions from 2000-2019.
Gaby Schneider returns to AE after having co-adapted and directed our production of "Much Ado About Nothing" at Hinkel in July of 2024. Gaby has been studying and performing Shakespeare since childhood. She was a core company member of Theater of Others founded by Glenn. She has worked at various theaters around the Bay Area, including Marin Shakespeare, Marin Theatre Company, and Playwrights Foundation (where she is now a board member). When not on stage, she works as a staff attorney at Bay Area Legal Aid.
CYMBELINE
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Glenn Havlan and Gaby Schneider
produced by Actors Ensemble of Berkeley
4 p.m. Saturday/Sunday July 5th - July 20th plus Friday, July 4th.
John Hinkel Park Amphitheatre
41 Somerset Pl., Berkeley, CA 94707.
Performances are Free of Charge
www.aeofberkeley.org
Actors Ensemble
P.O. Box 663
Berkeley, CA 94701
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www.aeofberkeley.org
A 501(3)(c) organization
