Tina Packer to Take On the Ladies of Shakespeare in Off-Broadway’s Women of Will

Bard aficionado Tina Packer will star off-Broadway in her play Women of Will, a constantly evolving piece that explores the female characters of William Shakespeare’s plays. Directed by Eric Tucker, Women of Will is scheduled to begin previews January 27, 2013 at the Gym at Judson, and will play a limited engagement through June 2. In addition to Packer, Women of Will is set to star Nigel Gore.

Women of Will highlights six of Shakespeare’s famous works, exploring Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, Viola in Twelfth Night and more of the Bard’s notable leading ladies. Packer estimates women outnumber men four to one in Shakespeare’s works. Women of Will has previously been mounted in Denver, Boston, and at the Prague Shakespeare Festival.

Packer is the founder and former artistic director of Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. She has directed every major Shakespeare play. Her stage acting credits include Shirley Valentine, Hamlet, Lettice and Lovage and The Comedy of Errors. Her film and TV credits include Doctor Who, Two a Penny and David Copperfield. She is the subject of the WGBH documentary Sex, Violence and Poetry: A Portrait of Tina Packer and the Helen Epstein biography The Company She Keeps.

Gore’s theater credits include Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Richard III, Medea, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Nicholas Nickleby, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night and Coriolanus.

The design team for Women of Will includes scenic and costume designer Valerie Bart, lighting designer Les Dickert and sound designer Daniel Kluger.