The Contention (Henry VI, Part II)

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Kate Kohler Amory is an award-winning, multi-hyphenate theater maker and professor. Some of her favorite directing/devising credits include: This Is It Shakespeare & Company: Plays in Process; Midsummer Nights: Dream Love Escape, The Birds, Romeo and Juliet: A Space Oddity (The Ridiculous Project); Dog Act, Mr. Burns: A Post-Electric Play, The Mermaid Hour: Remixed, Midsummer Night’s Dream (Boston Conservatory Berklee); Macbeth, Big Love, Ghosts of Troy, The Wolves, Comedy of Errors (Salem State University) and Hamlet (Brandeis University, co-directed). Kate is Founding Artistic Director of The Ridiculous Project, and Professor of Movement and Acting for Boston Conservatory Berklee. MFA Naropa University, MA RADA/ Kings College, BFA Goldsmiths College London. Kate is a master teacher of the Acrobat of the Heart psychophysical actor training, is certified in Trish Arnold Pure Movement, DE-SMTT: Somatic Movement Educator and CYT. Acting and other credits can be found at katekohleramory.com.

Martin J. Asprey just graduated with an MFA in directing from Texas State University. He has been an acting coach and text teacher for the past 20 years, a Shakespeare scholar, and has acted in over 20 Shakespeare professional productions. He is a stage fight teacher and choreographer. He’s directed many theater productions, and helped produce and direct a one-woman show called NOW starring TAMIR, that was voted one of the best shows in the Berkshires. He also directed and wrote two short indie films in the last two year’s titled Bicycle Pump and Mojo’s Three Words that were accepted in many film festivals and won awards including best short in London. He's appeared in many a Shakespeare & Company productions, including Mercutio (Romeo & Juliet), Edgar (King Lear), and Hamlet (Hamlet).

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Sheila Bandyopadhyay is a multi-hyphenate theater artist who, after 18 years in Brooklyn, NY, is delighted to be marking her first year as Shakespeare & Company’s Director of the Center of Actor Training. Movement Direction: Much Ado About Nothing (Shakespeare & Company); Macbeth (The Humanist Project); Mother Courage and her Children, The Cherry Orchard (American Academy of Dramatic Arts Company); Hamlet, Measure for Measure (NYU Gallatin); Twelfth Night (FSU Conservatory/Asolo Rep). In New York, Sheila has directed shows at the Brick, the United Solo Festival (Theater Row), the Tank, the Women in Theater Festival (the Gural), the West End Theater, and the 72nd St Theater Lab. Favorite roles include Stephano in The Tempest (Stages on the Sound), Tamora in Titus Andronicus (The Humanist Project) and Bianca/Grumio in The Taming of the Shrew (Tempest Ladies). Sheila is a proud member of the Humanist Project and a sponsored artist with Leviathan Lab.

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S&Co: Albany/ Oswald (King Lear), Don Bowman (The Waverly Gallery), Mr. Knightley (Emma; staged reading), Mr. Wickham (Pride & Prejudice; staged reading), Berowne (Love’s Labor’s Lost), Oberon (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Romeo (Romeo & Juliet; NE Regional Tour); Brown/ Trinity Rep MFA: Cloten/ Cymbeline (Imogen Project), Eric Glass (u/s The Inheritance); GhostLit Rep: Tommy McCorkle (Pterodactyls), Antonio (The Tempest); WAM Theatre: Calvin (REALLY; reading); 13th Street Rep: Prudblood (Waste, Fraud and Abuse). Other credits include: Tartuffe (Tartuffe), Emcee (Cabaret), Seymour (Little Shop of Horrors). David is an MFA Acting candidate at Brown/ Trinity Rep and is a proud alumnus of S&Co’s Education and Training programs.

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S&Co: Director: The Tempest (2017), As You Like It (2018), Twelfth Night (2019). Shakespeare & Company performances: A Walk in the Woods, King Lear, God of Carnage, Or, King John, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Henry IV Part 1, among others. As Artistic Director of Actors’ Shakespeare Project, Allyn directed and acted in numerous productions. Other Boston area performances include Can You Forgive Her (Huntington Theatre), Breaking the Code (Underground Railway Theatre), Shipwrecked (The Lyric Stage), The Seafarer and The Homecoming (Merrimack Repertory Theater), Five by Tenn (Speakeasy Stage). Elliot Norton Award for The Homecoming, King Lear, Five by Tenn; IRNE Award for Breaking the Code. Off-Broadway: Bug, Killer Joe, Louis Slotin Sonata, Closetland. Regionally: Actors’ Theatre of Louisville, American Conservatory Theatre, Long Wharf, Denver Center, Walnut St. Television: “The Broad Squad,” “Law and Order,” “Law and Order: Criminal Intent,” “Against the Law.” Films include The Company Men, Julie & Julia, Manchester by the Sea, and Don’t Look Up.

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Brendan F Doyle is a sound designer, engineer, and artisan working primarily in live performance applications: theatrical sound design, live music, and bespoke audio objects. He holds a MSC in Sound Design from the University of Edinburgh, and a BFA in Theatre Design and Technology from Emerson College. His work has been heard in bars, basements, chapels, and concert halls: He has also worked in theatres, at improvised venues of all sorts, and across the internet. Previous projects with Shakespeare & Company include Hymn, The Approach, hang, Art, Topdog/Underdog, The Waverly Gallery, and Macbeth. He is a proud member of United Scenic Artists Local USA 829.

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Sarah Edkins is a set designer based in Brooklyn, NY. Originally from London, England she started her theater career there as a puppeteer. Sarah has designed sets internationally, including three versions of The Return Of The Exile, in New York, London and Athens. Sarah worked five seasons as Resident Set Designer for Shakespeare-On-The-Sound in Rowayton, CT. In 1991 she was awarded a Theater Communications Group NEA design fellowship. Sarah has designed numerous projects at The Ancram Opera House including An Iliad, which was also produced at Shakespeare & Co. last year. In 2022 Sarah designed sets for Invasion and Still Life at Ancram Opera House, a new musical based on Pride and Prejudice, and two new Italian plays in NYC. For more information, please visit sarahedkinsdesign.com.

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S&Co: Jonny has directed or acted in more than 60 S&Co productions since 1987, including last year’s A Walk in the Woods and previously Creditors, Henry V, Merchant of Venice, Tempest, Cymbeline, Midsummer, Merry Wives, Private Eyes, Brief Lives, Heroes, An Iliad and the title roles in King Lear, Henry IV, Richard III and Macbeth. In 1990, he created the role of The Men in Tina Packer’s original Women of Will. He has performed on and off-Broadway and at scores of regional theatres around the country including Berkshire Theatre Festival (Amadeus, Cuckoo’s Nest, Via Dolorosa, Educating Rita...) and ART (Merchant of Venice, Phaedra, Paradise Lost, Picasso at the Lapin Agile). He is a two-time recipient of the Elliot Norton Award and is Teaching Professor of Classical Performance at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training where he adapted and directed their production of Love’s Labour’s Lost. This year he was the recipient of FSU’s Outstanding Graduate Teacher Award. Jonny and his wife Ariel Bock met onstage during The Aspern Papers (1991).

S&Co, recent: Leonato, Much Ado About Nothing; Gloucester, King Lear; Prospero, The Tempest; Belarius/Doctor, Cymbeline; Falstaff Merry Wives; George, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf (Elliot Norton Award, Outstanding Actor) at the Public Theatre Boston. Off-Broadway: Voltaire Emilie with Duende; Dr. Rank, A Doll’s House; Ostermark, The Father; at TFANA. Pickering, Pygmalion; Col. Brandon, Sense & Sensibility; Dorn, The Seagull with Bedlam. Regional: Killigrew, Nell Gwynn; Enobarbus, Antony & Cleopatra at The Folger in DC. Richard, Richard III (Westword Denver; Best Actor); Bottom, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Macbeth, Macbeth at Colorado Shakes. Squeers/Hawk, Nicholas Nickleby at The Lyric, Boston. Lyman Felt, The Ride Down Mt. Morgan at Oldcastle, VT: Scrooge, Christmas Carol; Caesar, Julius Caesar; Orlando Shakes. Brutus, Julius Caesar at Prague Shakes. Women of Will: USA, World Tour. TV & Film: Bedlam: The Series, Cold Wallet.

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S&Co: Much Ado About Nothing, Time Stands Still, Heisenberg, Cymbeline, The Tempest, Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona; Regional: Appropriate, SpeakEasy Stage; God’s Ear (Elliot Norton Award Best Actress & Best Production), Henry VIII, Pericles, Living In Exile, all for Actors’ Shakespeare Project; Rancho Mirage, New Repertory Theatre; Cabaret, American Repertory Theatre (IRNE Award Best Ensemble); Film/TV: Sheepdog, Boston Strangler, Mother/Android, John And The Hole (2020 Cannes/2021 Sundance), The Equalizer 2, The Judge; “Defending Jacob”; “Bull”; “The Secret Life Of Marilyn Monroe”; “Olive Kitteridge”; “Chasing Life”, “Army Wives”, “One Life To Live”; Canadian TV: “Blue Murder (Series Lead), “The Associates” (Series Lead); MFA American Repertory Theatre. Tamara’s solo show, This Is It, was recently in residency at Central Square Theatre in Boston. It was also part of Shakespeare & Company’s inaugural Plays in Process Festival last July, as well as at the United Solo festival in NYC last fall. Instagram: @thisisit_soloshow Facebook: This Is It

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S&Co Art. TV/Film Credits include: Law & Order, Zombie Wedding, FBI. Theater Credits: Backwards Forwards KCAB, The Agitators, Sender, Intimate Apparel, Hamlet, Sweat, The MotherF@cker with the Hat, ThreePenny Opera, and Angels in America.@picjames

S&Co: An Iliad, Measure for Measure, The Chairs, King Lear, Topdog/Underdog, Macbeth, Heisenberg, Cymbeline, God of Carnage, Or, Two Gentleman of Verona, Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged), It’s A Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play, Comedy of Errors, Richard II, Rough Crossing, Blue/Orange, The Ladies Man, Othello, Twelfth Night, Richard III, The Taster, As You Like It, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The War of the Worlds, Santaland Diaries. Regional: American Stage Company, Hartford Stage Company, Barrington Stage Company, Montana Repertory Theatre, WAM Theatre, Long Wharf Theatre, The Wilma, Wallis Center, The Public Theatre, McCarter Theatre, New Repertory Theatre, Hangar Theatre, George Street Playhouse, Stonington Opera House Arts, CLOC. Education: University of Toronto & Ithaca College. Based in Pittsfield, MA, Hope Rose is a member of Actors’ Equity Association and Stage Managers’ Association where she serves on the Board of Directors as Editor-in-Chief and International Cohort Chair. Follow @doctorstgmgr on Instagram.

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James McNamara is the Professor of Light/Sound Design and the Chair of the Theatre Arts Department at Westfield State University. He is also an Associate Artist/Designer at The Chester Theatre Company, where he has designed for the last 17 seasons. Professional Design: Ancram Opera House, LaMaMa ETC, CompanyOne, Lost Nation Theater, Pilgrim Theater Company, New Century Theatre, Strong Coffee Stage, New World Theater, Vermont Commons Group, Sankofa Dance Project, World Myth and Music and The Calvin Theater. Assistant design: The Guthrie Theatre Center, The McCarter Theatre, Yale Repertory Theatre, The Clarence Brown Theatre and Bard SummerScape. James received his MFA in Theatre Design from The University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

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S&Co: Ursula/George Seacoal (Much Ado About Nothing), Tilly (Tilly No-Body: Catastrophes of Love), Maria (Twelfth Night), Sir Hugh Evans (Merry Wives of Windsor), Queen/Arviragus (Cymbeline), Trinculo (The Tempest), Nerissa (The Merchant of Venice), Margaret (Worse Than Wolves), Outlaw (Two Gentlemen of Verona). Regional: Colorado Shakespeare Festival: Margaret (Richard III), LA Phil: Beckett One–Acts. UK: National Theatre: A Laughing Matter; The Permanent Way; She Stoops to Conquer. UK Regional includes: The Seagull; As You Like It; Brighton Beach Memoirs; Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay!; Anna Karenina; Orlando. Film: Mente Revolver (Best Feature at Granada Cines del Sur, 2018). Numerous BBC TV and Radio. Publications include: Shakespeare & Company: When Action is Eloquence with Tina Packer (2020); With the Rogue’s Company: Henry IV at the National Theatre (2005), The Complete Stanislavsky Toolkit (2014). Training: Russian University of Cinematography, Moscow; PhD from University of Birmingham, UK. Professor of Acting & Directing, University of California, Riverside. Union: AEA, British Equity, SAG-AFTRA. 2016 S&Co. Winter Intensive.

TV: White Famous, Showtime (series regular), Watchmen, HBO (series regular), Ray Donovan, Showtime (Recurring), Feed the Beast, AMC (recurring). Also seen on, Only Murders in the Building, WU-TANG: An American Saga, New Amsterdam, God Friended Me, High Maintenance, and several more. Film: Superfly, Forty-year-old Version, Snakes, R#J, Possession of Hannah Grace, The Bygone, Julie Taymour’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, and others. Broadway: Shrek the Musical (Original cast), Hands on a Hardbody, (Original Cast). Off Broadway: The Harder They Come, Public Theatre, Lortel nomination Alchemist, Mammon, Redbull theater, Lortel nomination Merry Wives, Falstaff, Public theater, Drama Desk nomination Father Comes Home from the Wars, Public theater, Lortel Award. Twelfth Night, Sir Toby, Public Theater. Cymbeline, Public Theater. Mother Courage, CSC. Merchant of Venice, TFANA. Midsummer Night’s Dream, TFANA. Widowers Houses, Epic Theater Ensemble. Tempest, Public Theater. On the Levee, Lincoln Center.

Born in England, Tina was trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, performed in regional theater, was an Associate Artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company, played in television series for the BBC and ITV, and arrived in the U.S. in 1974. She had a Ford Foundation Travel and Study Grant to research the visceral roots of Shakespeare’s plays, and travelled to India, Israel, Italy and the U.S. She co-founded Shakespeare &Company in 1978, and has worked for the Company ever since! She has directed all of Shakespeare’s plays (some of them several times), acted in eight of them (never when directing) and taught the whole canon at more than 30 colleges, including Harvard, M.I.T., and NYU. At Columbia University, she taught in the MBA program for four years, resulting in the publication of Power Plays: Shakespeare’s Lessons in Leadership and Management with Deming Center for Quality Management at Columbia Business School Professor John O. Whitney for Simon and Schuster. For Scholastic, she wrote Tales from Shakespeare, a children’s book and recipient of the Parent’s Gold Medal Award. Tina was the subject of WGBH documentary Sex, Violence and Poetry: A Portrait of Tina Packer. Tina’s book Women of Will was published by Knopf, and she has performed Women of Will with Nigel Gore in New York, Mexico, England, The Hague, China, and across the U.S. Charlie Rose interviewed Tina about her book Women of Will and she spoke at a TEDx talk about Women’s Voices. Her directing work is currently being written about in a work entitled Shakespeare in the Theatre: Tina Packer by Katharine Goodland, and will be published by Bloomsbury-Arden for their Shakespeare in the Theatre Series.

S&Co acting credits include: Shirley Valentine, Molly Ivins, The Beauty Queen of Leenane, Mother of the Maid; Volumnia, Gertrude, Cleopatra, and Edith Wharton several times. She’s the recipient of numerous awards and six honorary degrees, including the Commonwealth Award.

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Kenneth Ransom is an international actor and teacher with over 30 years of experience in theatre, film, television and streaming platforms. He is delighted to return to Shakespeare & Company, where he trained with eminent teachers, including co-founders Kristin Linklater and Tina Packer, and where he performed in some of his first professional productions, including: As You Like It with Karen Allen, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Comedy of Errors.

Film credits include: his critically acclaimed turn in Gods of Egypt (as the Sphinx) with the late Chadwick Boseman; Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course with Steve Irwin; Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles with Paul Hogan and several Australian television dramas, including The Heights, Arthur C. Clarke’s Childhood’s End and the Secret Life of Us.

On Stage, Kenneth collaborated with Mary Zimmerman on her Australian production of Metamorphoses and Dr. Wang Xiaoying of the National Theatre of China on his production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle. He has worked for The Mark Taper Forum, Melbourne Theatre Company, Sydney Theatre Company, Queensland Theatre Company, Bell Shakespeare (Sydney) and every major festival in Australia, as well as the Daegu International Music Festival in Korea.

Kenneth is a proud member of Actors Equity, SAG/AFTRA and Australian Equity.

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Vocal Coaching/S&Co: Measure for Measure, Much Ado, Merry Wives of Windsor, Taming of the Shrew, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Cymbeline, Intimate Apparel, The Merchant of Venice, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Or, Ugly Lies the Bone, Comedy of Errors, Hamlet, others. International: Prague Shakespeare Company: Winter’s Tale, Twelfth Night, Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble: Season prep. Regional: PlayMakers Repertory Company: As You Like It, Blues for an Alabama Sky, Emma, Julius Caesar, Native Son, Skin of Our Teeth, Wrinkle in Time, others, Atlantic Stage, Oxford Shakespeare Festival, Frank Theatre. Acting/Regional: Adam (As You Like It), Margie (Good People), Gertrude (Hamlet), Mistress Quickly (Merry Wives), Nurse (Romeo & Juliet), Desdemona (Masks of Othello), Betty Dullfeet, (Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui), Jean (Love Song of J. Robert Oppenheimer), Inspector (The Enchanted), Amanda (Glass Menagerie). Designated Linklater Teacher, Linklater Teacher Trainer, Certified Feldenkrais Teacher, Colaianni Speech and Dialect Work, and member of Actors Equity.

He was an English poet, playwright, and actor, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist. His works, including some collaborations, consist of about 37 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and several other poems. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright.

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Kiki has designed over 24 productions here since the very first production at the Mount of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and is grateful for another chance to work with Tina and such wonderful actors. She's also worked for years with the Talking Band in New York, with whom received an Obie Award for costumes. Her book Real Clothes, Real Lives: Two Hundred Years of What Women Wore about selected garments from the Smith College Historic Clothing Collection will be released in September. Smith has been Professor of Theatre at Smith College. She's very proud of a succession of former students who have worked here at S&Co over the years.

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Kathleen H. Soltan is a Philadelphia based Stage Manager and Creator. Selected Theatre Credits: King Lear, The Waverly Gallery, Macbeth with Shakespeare & Company, I Do! I Do! with Purple Crayon Productions, Cadillac Crew, Kamloopa with WAM Theater Company, Noises Off!, Othello, The Birds, The Handmaid’s Tale with CurioTheatre Company. Selected Training: BA Theater Temple University. Creative Inspiration: Kathleen is dedicated to providing and promoting safe spaces for all Performers, Designers, and Artistic Creators. Special thanks to Diane and Hope, the cast and crew, and to SPF 50!

Austyn Williamson is thrilled to be making his Shakespeare & Company debut. Previous regional credits include The Inheritance Parts I & II (Trinity Repertory Company), The Tempest (Oak Park Festival Theatre), How To Defend Yourself (Victory Gardens Theatre), Henry V (First Folio Theatre), and several more. Austyn is a current student at the Brown University/Trinity Rep. MFA Acting Program. He would like to thank his family, the B/T ‘25 Cohort, as well as his fellow cast and crew for all their love and support!