UPDATE: Due to schedule conflicts with some of the cast, our reading of King John has been postponed. American Shakespeare Repertory will not be performing anything on the evening of September 7th.

Fresh off our success at the 2011 Minnesota Fringe Festival, the American Shakespeare Repertory is returning to our critically acclaimed Complete Readings of William Shakespeare with the under-appreciated and rarely-produced King John.

King John‘s star once shone far brighter than it does today. In fact, a silent film version of the play filmed in 1899 is the earliest surviving film adaptation of a Shakespearean play.

Like many of Shakespeare’s history plays, King John is about far more than the title character: Here the stage is ruled by the titanic, generational struggle of wills between the cunning craft of old Queen Elinor, the fiery passion of young Constance, the sheer force of the Bastard of Faulconbridge, and the guilty conflict of Hubert de Burgh.

KING JOHN