Arden of Faversham, an Elizabethan true crime tragedy, is a play wrapped in mystery. Which playwrights collaborated on the play? Which scenes, if any, did Shakespeare write? What inspired the play’s creation almost forty years after the event it dramatizes? And why, since the script is so deliciously dark and funny, isn’t it produced more? Come be the judge as housewife Alice Arden plots with her lover and two spectacularly incompetent hit-men to murder her husband.
This hidden gem from Shakespeare’s time period is a sparkling discover.
Heather Hill, MD Theatre Guide
Brave Spirits Theatre’s modern-dress staging of Arden, directed by Dan Crane, keeps the tale’s episodes bowling along at a speedy clip, while sustaining an almost winkingly broad melodramatic tone – an apt enough fit for the play’s mixture of suspense, tragedy, and crime-caper burlesque.
Celia Wren, The Washington Post
GO, GO, GO to see this fantastic production.
Kelly K. Dowling, Shakespeare Standard
A real potboiler of a play, with sharp comedy, keenly written characters, and a solid script.
Eric Minton, Shakespeareances.com
Arden of Faversham is fabulously dramatic and entertaining. Although you won’t have to guess who done it, it’s fun to guess who wrote it, and why. It’s good to see Brave Spirits Theatre keeping these types of plays alive.