Young Shakespeare’s Cymbeline
Rehearsals: Begin in May 2025
Performances: June 20 - 29, 2025
Mark your calendar to audition for the amazing dark fantasy, Cymbeline : filled with forbidden love, familial strife and political intrigue!
Young Shakespeare is an intensive summer performance group for students aged 13-19, but we definitely have had younger experienced students audition in the past. Please let us know if you have any questions. A month-long rehearsal period culminates in a student-performed, professionally-staged production at The Curtain Theater, Austin's own Elizabethan replica theater space. The program is now in its 17th consecutive year.
Our audition workshop will be on March 8, 2025 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Interested persons are requested to please email us at youngshakespeare@austinshakespeare.org.
Email youngshakespeare@austinshakespeare.org to submit your headshot and resume to apply and please be sure to complete the form on this page. If you do not have a headshot, please send a recent picture. You can send a school picture or simply take a picture from the shoulders up.
The show is directed by Austin Shakespeare professional directors and students receive training in Shakespeare performance. Costumes, sets and lighting are professionally designed.
Young Shakespeare is a tuition-based program, with reasonable rates.
“Each summer we are amazed by the young talent that develops in this professional setting. Teens transform together through six weeks of training in Shakespeare text analysis, voice and diction, movement.”
− Nancy Owens, Former Co-Director Young Shakespeare
Rehearsal & Performance Dates:
Evening and weekend rehearsals begin in May 2025: Rehearsals are Monday-Thursday evenings and Saturday/Sunday afternoons. Rehearsal location(s) are yet to be determined.
There will be seven (7) performances June 20-29, 2025: Performances are Thursdays through Sundays at 8 pm at The Curtain Theater.
PLOT SUMMARY
Cymbeline entangles its fairy tale characters: an angry, grieving King, a wicked stepmother, a defiant daughter who flees in disguise, a faithful servant, a nefarious Italian, two long, lost children and even a headless corpse in a beguiling web of deceit, seduction and discovery.
From the troubled heavens, Jupiter must descend on an eagle to resolve this tangle of tales. Can the evil Queen be stopped? Will Imogen clear her name and reunite with her husband? Will Cymbeline find his long, lost children? Can Britain make peace with Rome?
Cymbeline culminates in one of the giddiest climaxes in Shakespeare’s entire canon.
CAST OF CHARACTERS
Cymbeline – King of Britain and Imogen's father. Once a wise and gracious monarch, but grief for his lost children clouds his judgement and he is led astray by the machinations of his new wicked Queen.
Queen – Cymbeline's wife and Imogen's stepmother. A villainous woman, she will stop at nothing–including murder – to see her son, Cloten, married to Imogen and, therefore, become the eventual king of Britain.
Imogen – Daughter to Cymbeline by his former queen. Wise, beautiful, and resourceful, Imogen incurs her father's displeasure when she chooses to marry the lowborn Posthumus, instead of Cymbeline's oafish stepson, Cloten.
Posthumus Leonatus – Husband to Imogen. An orphaned gentleman, he is adopted and raised by King Cymbeline. Posthumus marries Imogen in secret, against her father's will. Posthumus is deeply in love with Imogen but thinks the worst of her when she is accused of infidelity.
Cloten – Son to the present queen by a former husband. He was betrothed to Imogen before her secret wedding to Posthumus. Cloten is arrogant, clumsy, foolish.
Pisanio – Posthumus's faithful servant, left behind in Britain to serve Imogen and the Queen when Posthumus goes into exile. Pisano becomes fiercely loyal to Imogen.
Cornelius – A physician in Cymbeline’s court.
Philario – An Italian gentleman. Posthumus stays at Philario’s home during his exile from Britain.
Iachimo – A clever and dishonest Italian gentleman. Iachimo makes a wager with Posthumus that he can seduce Imogen, and when his attempt at seduction fails, resorts to trickery to make Posthumus believe that he has succeeded.
Caius Lucius – An ambassador to Britain and, later, the general of the Roman invasion force.
Belarius – A British nobleman, unjustly banished by Cymbeline. He kidnapped Cymbeline's infant children to revenge himself on the king, and, under the name of MORGAN, he has raised them as his own children in the Welsh wilderness.
Guiderius – Cymbeline's eldest son/daughter and Imogen's sibling, kidnapped and raised by Belarius under the name of POLYDORE.
Arviragus – Cymbeline's younger son/daughter and Imogen's sibling, kidnapped and raised by Belarius under the name of CADWAL.
A Soothsayer – A seer in the service of Caius Lucius.
Jupiter – The god of thunder and king of Olympus in Roman myth
The ghosts of Posthumus’s father, mother and two siblings.
Lords, Ladies, Attendants, Jailors, Messengers, Senators, Tribunes, Captain’s soldiers.