ON OUR STAGE
Wolf Hall
By Hilary Mantel, adapted for the stage by Mike Poulton
March 2, 3, 8**, 9, 10, 11*, 15**, 16, 17, 18*, 2018
Mike Poulton’s two-part adaptation of Hilary Mantel’s Man Booker Prize-winning novels is a thrilling portrait of a brilliant manipulator navigating a high-stakes political landscape. WOLF HALL begins in England in 1527. King Henry VIII needs a male heir, and his anger grows as months pass without the divorce he craves. Into this volatile court enters the commoner Thomas Cromwell. Once a mercenary and now a master politician, he sets out to grant King Henry’s desire while methodically and ruthlessly pursuing his own Reforming agenda.
"The extraordinary enthusiasm for these books across page, stage and screen is partly due to the inherent dramatic power of the narratives…[Mantel and Poulton] bring to the familiar tale of doomed wives and religious convulsion a thrilling originality of psychology and storytelling…absolute dramatic clarity with tantalizing historical ambiguity…Mantel and Poulton, while themselves rewriting history, show the king and his spin doctor doing the same."
—Guardian (London)
"…opens like ‘House of Cards' and ends like 'Game of Thrones'…Mike Poulton's adaptations keep the language accessible and the political context lucid enough for a general audience. They are also surprisingly funny, with a more broadly comic tone than Mantel's books…elegantly done…History repeats itself, first as farce, then as tragedy…masterful…highly satisfying."
—The Hollywood Reporter
"…a superbly tense duet…fiercely intelligent…Mantel's inspired approach, echoed by adaptor Mike Poulton, was to take the decade covering the rise and fall of Anne Boleyn and present everything from an entirely unexpected perspective: that of Cromwell, who rose inexorably from being the son of a blacksmith to becoming the second most powerful man in the kingdom…Poulton ensure[s] the stakes remain high and audiences engaged by the interstices of plots and counterplots."
—Variety
"…the real emotional tension resides mainly in the developing intimacy between Henry and Cromwell, and the disbelieving outrage that it provokes in the old aristocracy…an inexorable tragic momentum…a taut intelligence, and a subtle awareness of the parallels between Tudor times and our own…their verve, intelligence and wit are exhilarating."
—The Telegraph (London)
All performances 8:00pm, except: *Matinee performance 2:00pm | **Evening performances 7:30pm
The talented cast includes Jason Woods, Christian Douglas, Jesse Huffman, Geoffrey King, Joshua Turner, Tyler Hammond, Jordan Born, Matt King, Lauren McPherson, Abigail Hunger, Tzipporah Anderson, Michael Ray, Gary Moore, Jodi Hansen, Susan St. Denis, Neal Thorburn, Mia Woods, Christopher Watson, Taylor Smith, Alec Hadden, C. Michael Porter, Mark Wright, and Rhonda Fisher, all under the direction of William E.P. Davis.
Meet the cast:
Jason Woods
as Thomas Cromwell
Christian Douglas
as Gregory Cromwell
Jesse Huffman
as Rafe Sadler
Geoffrey King
as Cardinal Wolsey
Joshua Turner
as Mark Smeaton
Tyler Hammond
as Thomas More
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Photography by Maya Adkins
About the Director:
William E.P. Davis
Will is a freelance theatre director and teacher. He has been a director for companies and schools such as Lost Nation Theatre and Johnson State College in Vermont, Stagedoor Manor in New York, and Central Kentucky Community Theatre, where he was the Managing Artistic Director.
From 2011 to 2013 Will lived in London, England where he received his M.F.A. in Theatre Directing at East 15 School of Acting including study at GITIS in Moscow, Russia and ISI in Denpasar, Bali. While in London, Will was an assistant director with Theatre 503, The Royal Academy of Music, East 15 School of Acting, and Opera Forge as well as the Associate Director for AXIS Arts, for whom he directed multiple shows including MSND, an immersive reinventing of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featured in the new book Creating Worlds.
Will has directed for The Omaha Theatre Company for Young People, Midland Lutheran University, and F-Troupe Collaborative, where he served on the board. He has also taught classes in Modern Theatre Technique, Devising, Script Analysis, Acting, Movement for Actors, Introduction to Theatre, and Stagecraft.
Will has his bachelor's degree in Drama from The University of Washington and is currently an adjunct faculty with Eastern Florida State College.
Jordan Born
as King Henry VIII
Matt King
as Sir Henry Norris
Lauren McPherson
as Katherine of Aragon
Abigail Hunger
as Anne Boleyn
Tzipporah Anderson
as Jane Seymour
Michael Ray
as Duke of Norfolk
Gary Moore
as Duke of Suffolk
Jodi Hansen
as Jane Boleyn Rochford
Susan St. Denis
as Liz Cromwell / Mary Boleyn
Neal Thorburn
as Christophe / Francis Weston
Mia Woods
as Princess Mary /
Lady Worcester
Christopher Watson
as T Wyatt / George Boleyn
Mark Wright
as Warham / William Kingston
Alec Hadden
as Stephen Gardiner / Chapuys
C. Michael Porter
as T Cranmer / T Boleyn
Taylor Smith
as Harry Percy /
William Brereston
Rhonda Fisher
as Whore / Servant to Wolsey