Heather Headley, Six Queens & More Join Toast to Shakespeare's Birthday

It's Shakespeare's 456th birthday, and you know theater people love to celebrate birthdays—even while social distancing! On April 23 at 7:30PM CT/8:30PM ET, the Chicago Shakespeare Theater will present a one-night-only streaming event Toast to Shakespeare's Birthday. Hosted by Barbara Gaines and Rick Boynton, the company's artistic director and creative producer, respectively, the 30-minute event will be broadcast at www.chicagoshakes.com/toast and streamed on Facebook.

There is a fantastic lineup of guests for the Bard's birthday party: Tony winner Heather Headley, Broadway Six queens Adrianna Hicks, Andrea Macasaet, Abby Mueller, Brittney Mack, Samantha Pauly and Anna Uzele, Flying Over Sunset's Harry Hadden-Paton, T.R. Knight, John Tufts, Larry Yando, the Q Brothers Collective, Peter Sagal, Chef Rick Bayless, Rebecca Night, James Vincent Meredith, E. Faye Butler and more will be on hand.

The evening will include special musical performances from the stars of Six as well as the Q Brothers Collective, who have created award-winning “ad-rap-tations” of Shakespeare including Othello: The Remix.

The event will also highlight Chicago Shakespeare’s current initiatives to serve audiences, artists and the community, including Chicago Shakespeare’s new free educational initiative Stream and Study, the Theater's "Masks for Faces and for Noses" project in partnership with the University of Illinois—Chicago and the online platform Shakes@Home, which features engaging digital content, activities and teaching resources from the company's artists and staff for audiences to enjoy at home.