Tyrant, Show Thy Face – A Benefit for Actor’s Shakespeare Project

How does a truly disastrous leader – a sociopath, a demagogue, a tyrant – come to power?
How, and why, does a tyrant hold on to power? And what goes on in the hidden recesses of the tyrant’s soul?

For help in understanding our most urgent contemporary dilemmas, William Shakespeare has no peer.
In the new book Tyrant: Shakespeare on Politics, Pulitzer-prize winning author and Shakespeare Scholar STEPHEN GREENBLATT examines the themes of power and tyranny in some of Shakespeare’s most famous plays — from the dominating figures of Richard III, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Macbeth, and Coriolanus to the subtle tyranny found in Measure for Measure and The Winter’s Tale.

WGBH’s Executive Arts Editor & Host of Open Studio JARED BOWEN will join Greenblatt on stage for a conversation about the relevance of these themes in today’s world.

ASP Resident Acting Company members and ASP Youth will collaborate with Greenblatt to illuminate Shakespeare’s tyrants, from the fierce to the funny, with excerpts from Shakespeare’s plays and devised interactive performance pieces.