The Stranger’s Case

Presented by Beyond the Page

Wednesday, September  18, 7:00pm 

FREE ADMISSION, registration required

Beyond the Page presents a new theatrical and musical interpretation of William Shakespeare’s The Strangers’ Case, weaving our community’s modern perspectives on timeless themes, including: migrancy, community, citizenship and belonging.

Thanks to Generous support from vermont humanities, the little village fund, the cady fund, Town Hall Theater, Middlebury Underground & Courageous Stage

Questions?

Please contact the Box Office at 206.292.7676 or email boxoffice@acttheatre.org
Tuesday – Friday, noon – 5 pm.
Visit our Box Office page with more information here.

Citizenship and belonging are topics as rife today as they were more than 400 years ago when William Shakespeare is believed to have penned The Strangers’ Case, a passionate defense of refugees, in the play Sir Thomas More. Through a residency at Town Hall Theater, professional theater-makers from Middlebury College’s Beyond the Page will lead community members in a rich exploration of this text’s themes and create a culminating theater and music presentation – incorporating community members’ storytelling into the play.

About the Performance
Beyond the Page presents a new theatrical and musical interpretation of William Shakespeare’s The Strangers’ Case, weaving our community’s modern perspectives on timeless themes, including: migrancy, community, citizenship and belonging. This theatrical work will premiere Wednesday, September 18 from 7-8:30pm, and invites audience members into a rich, immersive, and unforgettable experience, featuring accomplished nationally recognized theater professionals. Enjoy performances from Vermont’s Craig Maravich, Los Angeles’s Louis Reyes McWilliams and Shelley Fort, and New York’s Madison Middleton and Haley Schwartz.

The Strangers’ Case community workshop and performance are free, thanks to generous support from Vermont Humanities, the Little Village Fund, and the Cady Fund. Beyond the Page partners include Middlebury Underground, Town Hall Theater, and Courageous Stage.

About Beyond the Page and its Visiting Actors:

Beyond the Page’s work is rooted in illuminating the impact of texts through techniques that engage classrooms and their unique perspectives. Their team brings tremendous experience as nationally recognized theater professionals, and as teaching artists at Middlebury College and elsewhere. Bristol, Vermont-based Craig Maravich serves at BtP’s program director. This residency, and its inspiration from The Strangers’ Case, is the brainchild of Los Angeles actor Louis Reyes McWilliams.

Led by Beyond the Page’s Professional Actors from New York, Los Angeles, and Vermont ​

  • Craig Maravich

    Program Director – Lead Teaching Artist

    Craig Maravich is the Program Director of the Beyond the Page program and a member of the faculty at The Bread Loaf School of English. He has been a company member of the Bread Loaf  Acting Ensemble since 2010 and has served as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Theatre at Middlebury College. He has held teaching positions with The University of Vermont, St. Michael’s College, Hofstra University, and The Academy for Visual and Performing Arts. His work as a teaching artist in Vermont includes the development of several classes and community initiatives with The Flynn Center for the Arts, The Town Hall Theater, and The Community Engagement Lab. Maravich is the Co-Founder of Courageous Stage – a program that uses theatre arts to activate creativity in schools and communities across Vermont. As a practitioner, Craig’s work as an actor spans a professional career of 20 years and includes credits with leading theatres across the country. Craig is a recipient of a Vermont Thriving Communities Grant and the 2021 A. Bartlett Giamatti Award for Professional Development: bringing creative practices into Bread Loaf and Middlebury classrooms and, through that work, cultivating inclusive learning and teaching environments.  He received his MFA in Classical Acting from The Shakespeare Theatre’s Academy for Classical Acting/George Washington University.

  • Louis Reyes Mcwilliams

    Teaching Artist – Special Projects

    Louis Reyes McWilliams is an actor, writer, and teaching artist based in Los Angeles. Born in New Jersey, Louis grew up in California and Massachusetts before attending Stanford University, where he attained a BA in Theater & Performance Studies and Political Science. He is a recent graduate of the Brown/Trinity Rep MFA Program in Acting & Directing. Louis’ theater credits include Off-Broadway, Shakespeare in the Park with The Public Theater, and regional productions with Berkeley Rep, Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble, Dallas Theater Center, the Huntington, The Old Globe, Pasadena Playhouse, Studio Theatre, Trinity Rep, Woolly Mammoth, and the Williamstown Theatre Festival. As a writer, his plays and screenplays have placed highly in various competitions, including the ScreenCraft Stage Play Competition and the Garry Marshall New Works Festival. He has been produced at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, Brown/Trinity Rep, and Stanford University.

  • Haley Schwartz

    Curriculum Director – LeadTeaching Artist

    Haley Schwartz is an actor, writer, filmmaker, and teaching artist based in New York City. She is a lover of both classical and contemporary texts, and is especially drawn toward work in film, TV, and stage that celebrates queerness, grapples with environmental apocalypse, and/or investigates grief and loss in all its absurd and unpredictable forms. Haley received her MFA in Acting from Brown/Trinity Rep (’20) where she was awarded the Antonio Cirino Memorial Scholarship, a Shubert Foundation Award, and the David Wickham Prize in Playwriting. Her full-length play Moonbox and her solo show Bindings both received workshop performances from Brown/Trinity Rep. Haley also worked as a graduate teaching associate, and taught introductory Acting and Directing to undergraduate students at Brown University. She is a proud member of BtP, and has been working as an actor and teaching artist with Middlebury College and Bread Loaf School of English since the summer of 2019. She holds a B.A. in Political Theory from Brown University (’17).

  • Shelley Fort

    Teaching Artist – Special Projects

    Description goeShelley is an actor, writer, and producer. She was born in Wilmington, North Carolina and was raised in Connecticut and Nebraska. Her work has been seen in New York and regionally at theaters including: La MaMa Experimental Theater, The Bushwick Starr, The National Black Theater; Quick Silver Theater Co; The Fire This Time Festival, The Classical Theatre of Harlem, The Langston Hughes Playwright Showcase, Trinity Rep, Chester Theater, and more. She’s trained in St. Petersburg, Russia (Theater Arts Academy), Oxford (British American Drama Academy), and Connecticut (National Theater Institute). She has a BA from Kenyon College and an MFA from Brown University. Shelley’s dad- Charles Fort- attended the Bread Loaf Writers Conference years ago. She’s thrilled to bring it full circle as a member of the Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble and as a teaching artist with Beyond the Page!s here

  • Madison Middleton

    Program Associate – Teaching Artist

    Madison Middleton (they/them) is an actor, teacher, director, playwright, singer, sound designer, and composer. Originally from Maryland and DC, they graduated from Middlebury College in February 2023 as class valedictorian. Select Middlebury acting credits include Rhinoceros, Company, Orphan Muses, Giants Have Us in Their Books, The Light in the Piazza, Julius Caesar, and their senior thesis work in acting, sound design, and composition Botticelli in the Fire. Other select Middlebury credits include Look Dream Begin: 28th Annual First Show (Producer/Director), Hamlet (Assistant Director), Somewhere (Sound Design), And Baby Makes Seven (Director), The Third (senior thesis work in playwriting), No One Is Forgotten (Director/Sound Design), PTP/NYC’s 34½ Season (Actor/Sound Design), Giants Have Us in Their Books (Original Music). Madison joined the Bread Loaf Acting Ensemble for summers 2022 and 2023 and served as the BLSE’s 2023 theatre manager. Madison is currently teaching a Middlebury College winter term course entitled “Investigating Musical Theatre.” They’re interested in musical and theatrical world-building, queerness, puppetry, magic, and justice through art-making.