Tickets are now on sale for Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s 2024 Season, featuring As You Like It, Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, and The Glass Menagerie. This is the Season of Generations: of the inheritors of the new world; of the young finding, discovering, claiming their identities and their power; of forging a new path and changing the world. Each of the shows of the 2024 season deal directly with the next generation inheriting the world. Co-sponsored by the Humanities Institute.

The 2024 season runs from July 18 – September 28.

As You Like It by William Shakespeare | July 13 – Sept. 1 | Directed by Carey Perloff

Shakespeare’s As You Like It is a tale of banishment and escape to the forest of Arden, where a merry band find unity, love, and rebirth. The ensemble includes the melancholy Jacques (“All the world’s a stage…), the vigorous Orlando, and the brilliant Rosalind. Amidst a hurly of comedy, disguise, and discovery, love is sought, debated, and eventually learned. As You Like It is a hilarious journey into the heart of human foible and frailty, showing us the myriad ways that love can rebuild the world.

Hamlet by William Shakespeare | July 31 – Aug. 31 | Directed by Susan Dalian

In the most famous play ever written, Prince Hamlet contends with the ghost of his father, with the swift marriage of his mother to his uncle, with himself… most potently with himself. His questions throughout, of what it means to be a man, a son, a citizen of the world; what it means to be alive; what is owed; these questions have echoed through the last four hundred years and will no doubt echo for as long as we stand up on a stage and tell stories. Not to mention that it’s a thrilling tale of murder, revenge, madness, and betrayal. Artistic Director, Charles Pasternak, will play Hamlet, with former Artistic Director, Mike Ryan, as Claudius.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde | July 14 – Sept. 7 | Directed by Paul Mullins

Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest has not been done in the 42-year history of Santa Cruz Shakespeare. It is one of the greatest comedies ever written, filled with some of the sharpest wit in the English language. The most iconic figure of this masterpiece is the formidable Lady Bracknell; obsessed with tradition and propriety, she cannot countenance her daughter Gwendolyn’s love of our titular Earnest. It’s not his money she objects to, of which he has plenty, but his bloodline: he has seemingly, and famously, descended from a HANDBAG. At least, that’s where he was discovered as an orphan. The young strain and contrive against their elder’s conservatism; through fantasy, imagination, and so much wit, they will reshape the world; redefining, and reNAMING, love’s conventions.

The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams | Sept. 11‒28 | Directed by Charles Pasternak

Presented for the first time in the company’s history, Tennessee Williams’ The Glass Menagerie is an American masterpiece; an autobiographical “dream” play, Tom, the young Tennessee, struggles in his claustrophobic home life, caught between his controlling mother and his damaged sister. He loves them. His battle is actually not that he wants to leave, but that he wants to stay. But if he does, can he ever become the writer and the man he aspires to be? A thrilling expansion for Santa Cruz Shakespeare: Menagerie will open at the end of our traditional summer season, running in the Grove through September.