Jesuit playwright Bill Cain (New York Province Society of Jesus) has been having a big theatrical year. His play, Equivocation, premiered at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in March to an enthusiastic reception that continued through the entire season playing to capacity crowds. One festival patron saw it 21 times over the months it ran before the entire production with cast and director moved to Seattle Repertory Theater to another set of sold out crowds.

At almost the same time another production opened at Los Angeles’ Geffen Playhouse with a very different cast and look. The play will be picked up for a New York production this spring at the Manhattan Theater Club and also the Bay area’s Marin Theatre.

All this is happening while Cain is involved in staged readings of his new play How to Write a New Book for the Bible and finishing writing yet another scrip, this one about the Resurrection.

If you can see this play, do it —

Misha Berson of the Seattle Times writes, “In Cain’s drama, Will ‘Shagspeare’ is no lionized theater god or hero, but a conflicted working scribe, caught up in his own religious, political, artistic equivocations. In Anthony Heald’s restrained, anchoring portrayal, Will is stressed on all fronts. Most worrisome are the dire demands of Sir Robert Cecil, ruthless top adviser to King James I.” … [read the review here]

Learn more about the play, at the Rep. through Dec. 13th