Oscar winner and all around terrific actress and person Frances McDormand will be starring as Lady Macbeth in Shakespeare's dark and murderous Macbeth, next season at Berkeley Rep. The addition to the 2015-2016 calendar was just announced by the theater, and the director is Daniel Sullivan who directed McDormand in her Tony-winning performance in 2011's Good People on Broadway.
Sullivan has directed multiple acclaimed productions for Shakespeare in the Park in New York, including 2009's Twelfth Night. Macbeth will begin its run in February 2016, and casting for the lead role of Macbeth is yet to be announced.
McDormand was last seen in the Bay Area in the three-night engagement of The Wooster Group's Early Shaker Spirituals, in February at Z Space. Before that, in December, she was on stage with Dave Eggers at City Arts & Lectures where she talked a lot about her career, often playing stalwart and tough "everywomen" like Marge Gunderson in Fargo, Margie in Good People, and most recently the title character in the wrenching HBO miniseries Olive Kitteridge. She and husband Joel Cohen (one half of the Cohen Brothers) have had a house in West Marin for the past decade where they live part time, and therefore she's occasionally been spotted places like the Ferry Plaza farmers' market over the years.
Also announced yesterday for Berkeley Rep's upcoming season is an exciting new play by Sarah Ruhl, For Peter Pan on her 70th birthday, which will be making its world premiere under the direction of acclaimed director Les Waters at the Actors Theatre of Louisville. It will begin its run in Berkeley in May 2016 starring Kathleen Chalfant, who won multiple awards for her off-Broadway performance in Wit, and was Tony nominated for her multiple roles in Angels in America.
And local fans of the work of physical comedian Steven Epp, who appeared this season in a more serious capacity in Tartuffe, will be glad to know he'll be returning next April as Long John Silver in Treasure Island, directed by another Rep favorite, Mary Zimmerman.
