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In a display of ambition that seems positively, well, Shakespearean, The New American Shakespeare Tavern has announced that it will stage 15 plays between this August and next June for its 2008-2009 season. That’s a staggeringly busy schedule for a company that has no second stage, requiring constant performance.

In prior years the Tavern has staged “August Three-peat” repertory remounts of shows from earlier in the year, a concept tweaked for “Two Months of Four Plays,” with this August seeing returns of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged), Much Ado About Nothing, Twelfth Night and King John. (I reviewed the 2006 production of Complete here).

After Antony and Cleopatra in October, the Tavern stages the rarely-seen threesome of Henry VI, Parts I, II and III. Incidentally, I happened to see Artistic Director Jeffrey Watkins at Essential Theatre’s Valhalla last night, and asked him if they considered including Richard III with the Henry plays, since it’s basically a sequel to or conclusion of that cycle. Watkins said that they did, but that four plays would be too demanding to put on essentially all at once, but that in the 2009-2010 season, the Tavern might stage Richard III and bring the Henry VIs back.

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Do you ever think of yourself as actually dead, lying in a box with a lid on it? … Even taking into account the fact that you’re dead, it isn’t a pleasant thought. Especially if you’re dead, really … ask yourself, if I asked you straight off – I’m going to stuff you in this box now, would you rather be alive or dead? Naturally, you’d prefer to be alive. Life in a box is better than no life at all. I expect. You’d have a chance at least. You could lie there thinking – well, at least I’m not dead!

– From Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard, playing May 9-June 1 at the Shakespeare Tavern and starring Nicholas Faircloth, Paul McClain and Paul Hester

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