originally published: 09/18/2019



(LAWRENCEVILLE, NJ) -- Rider Theatre will present William Shakespeare’s Hamlet with an all-female cast in the Yvonne Theater on the campus of Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. October 2 through October 6. The production, also directed by Ivan Fuller, will be performed by Rider University students.

“As with most theatre programs in America, we have a large number of women majoring in the performing arts at Rider,” Fuller says. “And, sadly, it is often difficult to find plays that have a lot of female roles in them, especially classic plays. When casting my production of Hamlet, I wanted to provide an opportunity for women to embrace the challenge of tackling what I consider to be one of the best plays in the English language. Not only do they deserve that opportunity, but I have no doubt that they have the strength and power to pull it off. And...if gender didn't matter to Shakespeare (since he was forced to do his plays with an all-male cast, with men playing the female roles) then gender doesn't matter to me either!”

Reflecting on the play’s production, he says, “This is not your typical interpretation of Hamlet. While we have remained true to Shakespeare’s words, adding none of our own, we have taken great liberties with how the play has been presented over the past 400 years. By playing the ‘What If?’ game, I think we’ve come up with a unique, original and excitingly ‘possible’ version of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy. The magic of Shakespeare’s work is that it allows for the degree of creative license that audiences will witness in this production.”

A preview performance will be presented Wednesday, October 2 at 7:30pm. Performances are Thursday, October 3 at 7:30pm, Friday, October 4 at 7:30pm, Saturday, October 5 at 2:00pm and 7:30pm and Sunday, October 6 at 2:00pm. Tickets are $20 for adults and $15 for students and seniors. They can be purchased at the door, through the box office at 609-896-7775 or online at www.rider.edu/arts. General admission preview tickets are $9 for adults and students and $5 for seniors and are only available at the door.

Ivan Fuller is professor of theatre and chair of Rider University’s Theatre and Dance Department. Dr. Fuller was professor of theatre and chair of the Performing & Visual Arts Department at Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., from 1989 to 2011. For 15 years he was the founder and artistic director of the Bare Bodkins Theatre Company producing Shakespeare in Sioux Falls. He has been to Russia nine times, leading students on study-abroad trips or writing. His play Eating into the Fabric was chosen for the Mainstage Reading Series at the Great Plains Theatre Conference in May 2009, where it was awarded a Holland New Voices Award for Outstanding Play. It was also a semi-finalist for the Eugene O’Neill National Playwriting Conference. In July 2009 he served as playwright-in-residence for Summer Literary Seminars in Vilnius, Lithuania, where he completed the first draft of Awake in Me. In 2010 and 2012, he returned to St. Petersburg, Russia, where he completed In Every Note. In 2016 and 2017 he spent time in Rwanda where he wrote, and then presented, the play Deceived by Silence.

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Rider University’s Theatre program has a rich tradition of preparing students for successful careers in all aspects of the theatre. Graduates of the program are working with national theatre companies, in film and on television. Campus productions have earned critical praise for more than 50 years and offer the community the opportunity to see aspiring actors in the early stages of their careers.

Rider University is located at 2038 Lawrenceville Road in Lawrenceville, N.J. For more information on, visit www.rider.edu/arts.