As You Like It

Nora Eschenheimer* –  Commonwealth Shakespeare Company: Miranda in The Tempest, Imogen in Cymbeline (Elliot Norton Award nomination), Isabella in Measure for Measure benefit staged reading. The Gamm Theatre: Ophelia, Hamlet, Feste, Twelfth Night, Helena, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hovstad, A Lie Agreed Upon, Rosalind, As You Like It, Gwendolen Fairfax, The Importance of Being Earnest, Perdita, The Winter’s Tale. Trinity Repertory Company: The Ghost of Christmas Present, A Christmas Carol. Lyric Stage Company of Boston: Sandra, The Play That Goes Wrong. Ocean State Theatre Company: Rachel Brown, Inherit the Wind. Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles: Princess of France, Love Labour’s Lost. Nora is from Newport, RI, and is a licensed boat captain and lighthouse keeper. noraeschenheimer.com | @noraeschenheimer

Michael Underhill* is thrilled to return to CSC for his sixth Shakespeare On The Common after appearing in Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, Cymbeline, Richard III, and Othello as well as their Stage2 productions of Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth. Selected regional credits include The Huntington: Witch (Elliot Norton nomination for Best Actor), Man in the Ring, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. The Old Globe: The Age of Innocence, As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor; Henry 6, Twelfth Night, The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, The XIXth, Ebenezer Scrooge’s BIG San Diego Christmas Show. Praxis Stage: King John. SpeakEasy Stage: Necessary Monsters. Gamm Theatre: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Education: Northeastern University (B.A.) and The Old Globe University of San Diego Shiley Graduate Theatre Program (M.F.A.) Representation: HCKR. Big thanks to Mom, Dad, Emma, Brian and Meghan for always being the wind at my back. www.michaeljunderhill.com

Maurice Emmanuel Parent* – CSC: The Tempest, King Lear, Coriolanus. Other Theatre Credits: The Huntington, Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park, Geva Theatre, Barrington Stage, Northern Stage, Fulton Theatre, SpeakEasy Stage, Lyric Stage, New Rep, Greater Boston Stage, and Central Square Theater. TELEVISION/FILM:  “Kevin Can F**K Himself,” “Castle Rock,” and “I Wanna Dance with Somebody”. AFFILIATIONS/AWARDS: 3-time Elliot Norton Award Winner; 3-time IRNE award winner; Resident Company Member of Actors’ Shakespeare Project; Producing Artistic Director, Front Porch Arts Collective; Professor of the Practice, Tufts Department of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies. www.FrontPorchArts.org

John Kuntz* – CSC: Twelfth Night (Sir Andrew), Henry V (Fluellen), Hamlet (Guildenstern/Osric), The Tempest (Trinculo), Macbeth (The Porter), Much Ado About Nothing (Antonio). Lyric Stage: ART (Marc), The Baltimore Waltz (Carl), The Comedy of Errors (Antipholus of Ephesus) and others. ART: Copenhagen (Heisenberg), The Lily’s Revenge (The Poppy), The Communist Dracula Pageant (Minister of Defense, et al).  The Huntington: The Hotel Nepenthe (The Groom, et al), Betty’s Summer Vacation (Voice #1).  Speakeasy Stage: The Prom (Barry), People, Places & Things (Paul/Dad), The Whale (Charlie), among others. John is the author of 15 full-length plays, including The Hotel Nepenthe, The Salt Girl, Starf*ckers, and Necessary Monsters. He is the recipient of 5 Elliot Norton Awards and is a Professor of Theatre at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee and a Lecturer in Theatre, Dance & Media at Harvard University.

Joshua Olumide* – CSC: The Winter’s Tale. The Huntington: The Grove (World Premiere), Sojourners. Classic Theatre of Maryland: Romeo and Juliet. SpeakEasy Stage: Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. People’s Light: Our Town. Hanover Theatre Rep: Macbeth. New Rep: A Raisin in the Sun. Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival Willpower Tour: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Film credits include: “American Fiction” (MGM, Oscar-winning film), “Detroit” (Annapurna Pictures). @josholumide_ 

Remo Airaldi* – CSC: Much Ado About Nothing, The Tempest, Cymbeline, Richard III, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Two Gentlemen of Verona, All’s Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew. Over sixty productions at the American Repertory Theater, including Oliver Twist (also at Theatre for a New Audience and Berkeley Repertory Theatre), and Island of Slaves (IRNE Award for Outstanding Actor). Lyric Stage: ART, Urinetown, Little Shop of Horrors, Gypsy, The Little Foxes. SpeakEasy Stage: Shakespeare in Love. Boston Playwrights’ Theatre: Exposed. Central Square Theater: Frankenstein, The Hound of the Baskervilles. New Rep: The King of Second Avenue. Productions at Hartford Stage, La Jolla Playhouse, Geffen Playhouse, Cirque du Soleil, American Conservatory Theater, Actors’ Theatre of Louisville. He teaches acting at Harvard University.

Jared Troilo*– CSC: Carol ‘24, As You Like It. Regional: The Huntington Theatre Company, Speakeasy Stage, Lyric Stage, Moonbox Productions, Wheelock Family Theatre, Reagle Music Theatre, Palace Theatre, Greater Boston Stage Company, Winter Park Playhouse, Shadowland Stages, Umbrella Stage Company, TigerLion Arts, Company Theatre, and The Barnstormers. TV/Film: “About Fate” (Amazon), “Across The Pacific” (PBS), “Kevin Can F*** Himself” (AMC). Awards: Independent Reviewers of New England (IRNE) Award Winner (She Loves Me), Elliot Norton Award Nominee (The Last Five Years, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Oklahoma!, The Band’s Visit). Education: The Boston Conservatory. Proud Member of AEA. JaredTroilo.com. Love to Kira, Levi, and Jonah.

Paul Michael Valley*  – CSC debut! Broadway: 1776 (Tony Nominated). Off-Broadway: Talley’s Folly, Any Given Monday, Arms and the Man, Hurrah at Last. Regionally: Old Globe, Shakespeare Theatre of DC, Cleveland Playhouse, Denver Center, Wellesley Repertory Theatre, Mockingbird Public Theatre. Television: “Blue Bloods,” “Elementary,” “Third Watch,” “Law and Order SVU,” “Guiding Light,” “One Life to Live,” “Another World” (over 500 episodes). Paul teaches at Wellesley College, Worcester State University.

Stephanie Burden*  – CSC Debut. Theatre Row NY/Hudson Theatres LA: American Pain. The English Theatre of Frankfurt/Ensemble Theater: Bad Jews. Folger Theater: A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Ford’s Theater: The Matchmaker. The Kennedy Center: The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Katie Couric’s The Brand New Kid. Theater J: Shylock. Everyman Theater: Red Herring, The Children’s Hour. Walt Disney Concert Hall: The Planets, Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons. TV: “The Wire,” “VEEP,” “The Middle,” “The Mentalist,” “Speechless.”

Brooks Reeves – CSC Debut. A five-time Norton nominee, other credits include Apollinaire: Suppliant Women, Hamlet, The Importance of Being Earnest, Three Sisters, Midsummer, From White Plains, Brilliant Adventures, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, etc. Hub Theatre: Tartuffe, Complete Works. Company One: Greater Good, An Octoroon, Shockheaded Peter. Zeitgeist: Love! Valour! Compassion!, Boys in the Band, Bent. Greater Boston Stage: Neville’s Island. Central Square: A Christmas Carol, Arabian Nights. Bad Habit: Closer, 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, Gross Indecency. Happy Medium: Black Comedy. Bridge Rep: The Libertine, Julius Caesar. Also a playwright, his play Y Tu Perrito Tambien was recently performed at Apollinaire in Chelsea, and The City That Cried Wolf by State of Play in New York.

Siobhán Carroll — CSC: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Blue Kettle & Here We Go. On screen credits: co-star on Amazon Prime’s MR. & MRS. SMITH, series regular (Petra) in the Black Oak TV series MS/MANAGE, Laura in PERFECT PARTY, etc. On-stage credits: The Thin Place (Gloucester Stage), Romeo & Juliet (New Repertory Theatre CRC tour), Red Velvet (OWI), It’s A Free Country (SheNYC), and Macbeth (The Cutting Room), I, Snowflake and My Fascination with Creepy Ladies (Anthem Theatre Company), etc. Siobhán’s one-woman show Is This You was part of DQT’s American Women playwriting fellowship and is a semi finalist for SheNYCs 2025 festival. She is an Irish-American actor and writer. Siobhán is the co-founder of Next Minute Productions. siobhancarroll.com; @siobhancarroll

Patrick Vincent Curran — CSC Debut. Boston credits include; Hub Theatre Company of Boston: Tartuffe, Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged. Stickball Productions: Bouncers. Wax Wings Productions: A Streetcar Named Desire. Flat Earth Theatre Company: The Memorandum. Touring credits include; Homer in the Wild: An Iliad. Brown Box Theatre Company: As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet. Film and Television; “Castle Rock”, “Dexter: New Blood”, “Free Guy”, “Louie”, “Kevin Can F*** Himself”, “Amigos Tontos “,”Gotham “. He holds a BA in Theatre Studies from Emerson College, and is a proud member of SAG-AFTRA. @CatPurran33

Peter DiMaggio –– CSC Debut. Actors’ Shakespeare Project: Romeo and Juliet. Wheelock Family Theatre: The Spongebob Musical. Sh!t-faced Shakespeare: Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. LAMDA: Troilus and Cressida. Boston University: Once, Shakespeare in Love, Mercury. Peter received his BFA in Acting from Boston University and a Certificate in Classical Acting from LAMDA. He’d like to thank his mentors, friends, and family for their constant love and support. 

Website: www.peterdimaggio.com Instagram: @peterdimaggio TikTok: @peterdimaggiomusic

Clara Hevia — CSC: The Winter’s Tale (Perdita), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Stage2) and Henry VI Part II (App Co). National tour: Cats (Swing/Booth Singer). Lyric Stage Company: Made You Look (Wren), Party Bots (Quinn/Others). Saratoga Shakespeare: King Lear (Cordelia/music captain). clarahevia.com @clara.hevia

Cleveland Nicoll– CSC: The Winter’s Tale, Macbeth; Stage 2: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo & Juliet. Wheelock Family Theatre: The SpongeBob Musical. The Hub Theatre Company of Boston: The Book of Will. Sundance: Wizard of Oz. Hale Centre Theatre: Baz Lurman’s Strictly Ballroom (U.S. Premiere), Phantom. An Other Theatre Co.: Hedwig and the Angry Inch. Renaissance Now Theatre & Film: Twelfth Night, The Tempest.

Kandyce Whittingham  –– CSC: Debut. Huntington Theatre Company: The Grove. Moonbox Productions: Holy Chicken Sandwich. Central Square Theater: Beyond Words. Sh!t-Faced Shakespeare: Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Apollinaire Theater Company: Hamlet. Kandyce holds a BFA in Acting from Emerson College and is a proud Georgia native. kandycewhittingham.com @kandyce.kmw

Chloe Boyan  – CSC: The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Apprentice Program 2023; Greater Boston Stage Company: Founding Effers; Sh!t Faced Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Oregon Shakespeare Festival: Lysistrata @ The Green Show; Broadway Bound Theatre Festival: Family Vacation; New York Theatre Festival: The Elevator; Oregon Cabaret Theatre: The Play That Goes Wrong, A Christmas Carol, The Full Monty. Chloe has also been seen at In Confidence Club NYC, Capital Stage Sacramento, and Catalyst Theatre Festival. Education: BFA in Acting from Southern Oregon University. www.chloeboyan.com @chloeboyan

Steven Maler is the Founding Artistic Director of Commonwealth Shakespeare Company (CSC). At CSC he has been directing Free Shakespeare on the Boston Common productions since 1996, including Richard III, Love’s Labour’s Lost, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Coriolanus, All’s Well That Ends Well, Othello, The Comedy Of Errors, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Taming of the Shrew, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, Macbeth, Henry V, The Tempest, Julius Caesar, and Romeo & Juliet. Other CSC works include his critically acclaimed production of Naomi Wallace’s adaptation of William Wharton’s novel Birdy, Ariel Dorfman’s Death and the Maiden, the world premiere of Jake Broder’s Our American Hamlet, and the world premiere of Robert Brustein’s The Last Will.  In collaboration with Boston Landmarks Orchestra, he directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring the Overture and Incidental Music of Felix Mendelssohn, as well as concert stagings of The Boys from Syracuse and Kiss Me Kate at Boston’s iconic Hatch Shell.  For CSC he has also directed one-night-only readings of iconic plays featuring Ruben Santiago-Hudson, Paul Rudd, Anthony Mackie, Blair Brown, Tony Shalhoub, Brooke Adams, Leslie Uggams, David Morse, and Jeffrey Donovan among others.  He conceived and directed Shakespeare at Fenway, an evening of Shakespeare scenes performed at Boston’s iconic Fenway Park, featuring Mike O’Malley, Neal McDonough, Maryann Plunkett, Jay O. Sanders, Kerry O’Malley, Seth Gilliam, Zuzanna Szadkowski, Max Von Essen, Christian Coulson, Jason Butler Harner, and many others.

In collaboration with Google, he adapted and directed a first of its kind sixty minute virtual reality film of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, entitled Hamlet 360: Thy Father’s Spirit, starring Jack Cutmore-Scott, Jay O. Sanders, Brooke Adams, and Faran Tahir.  It is currently available for viewing on Boston public media producer GBH’s YouTube channel; for more information, visit www.wgbh.org/hamlet360.

Outside of CSC, he directed Maria, Regina D’Inghilterra for Odyssey Opera, Péter Eötvös’ operatic treatment of Tony Kushner’s Angels in America (U.S. Premiere) and Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face for Opera Boston, The Turn of the Screw at New Repertory Theatre, Santaland Diaries and Chay Yew’s Porcelain at SpeakEasy Stage Company, Top Girls and Weldon Rising at Coyote Theatre, and The L.A. Plays by Han Ong at A.R.T. His New York City credits include the New York Musical Theatre Festival production of Without You, written by and starring Anthony Rapp. The production has been seen in Boston, Edinburgh, Toronto, London, and Seoul.

He received the prestigious Elliot Norton Award for Sustained Excellence, as well as for Best Production for Twelfth Night and All’s Well That Ends Well; Outstanding Director, A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Best Production, SubUrbia; Best Solo Performance, John Kuntz’s Starf***ers (which also won Best Solo Performance Award at New York International Fringe Festival). His feature film “The Autumn Heart,” starring Tyne Daly and Ally Sheedy was in the Dramatic Competition at the Sundance Film Festival.

William Shakespeare was a renowned English poet, playwright, and actor born in 1564, in Stratford-upon-Avon. His birthday is most commonly celebrated on 23 April, which is also believed to be the date on which he died in 1616. Shakespeare was a prolific writer during the Elizabethan and Jacobean ages of British theatre (sometimes referred to as the English Renaissance or the Early Modern Period). Shakespeare’s plays are perhaps his most enduring legacy, but they are not the only things he wrote. Shakespeare’s poetry has also remained popular to this day.

Shakespeare’s work includes 38 plays, 2 narrative poems, a collection of 154 sonnets, and other poems as well. No original manuscripts of Shakespeare’s plays are known to exist today, and about half of Shakespeare’s plays are only available to us because a group of actors in his company collected them for publication after his death. These writings were brought together in what is known as the First Folio (‘Folio’ refers to the size of the paper used). It contained 36 of his plays, and none of his poetry. Shakespeare’s legacy is as rich and diverse as his work; his plays have spawned countless adaptations across multiple genres and cultures, and his plays have had an enduring presence on stage and film.

His writings have been compiled in various iterations of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare by different entities, which usually include all of his plays, his sonnets, and his other poems. From Stratford to London and beyond, William Shakespeare was and is one of the most important literary figures of the English language.

Victoria Townsend is a Boston-based director, teaching-artist and occasional performer who has been working with CSC since 2011. Directing Credits: For CSC: Stage2: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2024), ARC: Richard II (2024), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2023), As You Like It (2022) and several Boston Theater Marathon pieces; Emerging Playwright’s Festival (Wheelock Family Theater), Cosi Fan Tutte (New England Conservatory’s UGOS Program), The Memorandum (Flat Earth Theater). Assistant Directing Credits: Fear and Misery in the Third Reich, Kiss me Kate, Romeo and Juliet and Shakespeare and Leadership (CSC) and L’Egisto (NEC/UGOS). She has also served as a teaching-artist for Watertown Children’s Theater and Live Arts Education. Victoria is a graduate of Saint Michael’s College in Vermont with degrees in Theatre and English Literature and holds a certificate in Social Impact Management and Leadership from the Institute for Nonprofit Practice & Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University.

Riw Rakkulchon is a Set & Costume Designer, Animator, and Chef from Bangkok, Thailand. He/They has worked at Yale Repertory Theatre, Syracuse Stage, The Old Globe, Drury Lane Theatre, Asolo Rep, The Acting Company, 59E59, Edinburgh Fringe, Primary Stages, Hartford Stage, The Public Theatre, amongst others . He/They also works with designers Wilson Chin, Riccardo Hernandez, Jason Ardizzone-West, Donyale Werle, Santo Loquasto, Dane Laffrey, Rachel Hauck, Clint Ramos and Walt Spangler. Board member of WithAll, a non-profit Organization on a fight to end eating disorders. @riwrdesign, B.F.A. Ithaca College, M.F.A Yale School of Drama (Donald & Zorca Oenslager Fellowship Award in Design Recipient).

Miranda Kau Giurleo has previously designed Macbeth, Julius Caesar and Midsummer Night’s Dream for CSC’s Second Stage.  Regional credits include: Native Gardens, The Heath, The Royale, A Christmas Carol, Chill  (Merrimack Repertory Theatre), Allegiance, The Scottsboro Boys (SpeakEasy Stage Company), Dry Land, Shockheaded Peter, She Kills Monsters, Neighbors (Company One), Richard III, Measure for Measure, As You Like It (Actor’s Shakespeare Project), The Convert, Matchless & The Happy Prince, Roots of Liberty (Underground Railway Theatre), True West, Dancing at Lughnasa, The Effect, The New Electric Ballroom, Totalitarians (Gloucester Stage Company).  Miranda is also on the faculty at Bridgewater State University where designs include Gypsy, Assassins, and Young Frankenstein.

David Reiffel (Sound Designer) is a Boston-based composer, songwriter, playwright and sound designer. Recent national credits include Shakespeare in Love (U.S. national premiere), Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet (Oregon Shakespeare Festival); Cymbeline (Shakespeare & Co.).  Recent Boston area credits include: Man of La Mancha (Elliot Norton Award for Outstanding Musical Direction), Master Class, and Chesapeake (IRNE Nominee )(New Repertory Theatre); The Curious Incident . . ., The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart, The Christians, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and many others (Apollinaire Theater Company); Shakespeare in Love (Norton Award, musical direction), Dogfight, Big Fish, Carrie, and The Color Purple (SpeakEasy Stage); A Disappearing Number (Underground Railway Theatre, IRNE Nominee); King Lear, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, and Middletown (Actors’ Shakespeare Project); Gabriel, Doubt and I Capture the Castle (Greater Boston Stage Company); My Station in Life, The Rainmaker, Man in Snow, and Gloucester Blue (Gloucester Stage, LaMama); The Rag Doll (Blue Spruce, IRNE Nominee, Best New Play); Mary Stuart and Everyman (Northeastern); 10 out of 12 (Emerson Stage); The Cradle Will Rock and Coolsville (Boston Conservatory at Berklee). He teaches Songwriting at The Boston Conservatory at Berklee. Listen at soundcloud.com/davidreiffel.

Peter DiMuro returns to CSC after last year’s production of The Boys From Syracuse, presented with Boston Landmarks Orchestra. Peter’s work has been commissioned by leading presenters and universities, including The Kennedy Center/DC, Dance Place/DC, Bates Dance Festival, American Dance Festival, AURAS Dance/Lithuania, The Boston Conservatory and Point Park University. In theatre, he has created dance and movement for productions at Theatre J, Open Circle Theatre, and the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC. His original company, Peter DiMuro Performance Associates and his fifteen-year collaboration, including 5 years as Artistic Director, with Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, laid the foundation for his current creative umbrella, Peter DiMuro / Public Displays of Motion. Peter is grateful for previous support from the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Performance Network, and, more recently, from The Boston Foundation’s Next Step, the Boston Dance Alliance; the Mayor’s Office of Boston; and The Dance Complex, for which he serves as Executive Artistic Director. In May, Peter received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Dance from Salem State University.

Ryan Winkles* – Commonwealth Shakespeare Company: Universe Rushing Apart: Blue Kettle and Here We Go. Huntington Theatre: Joy and Pandemic. Gloucester Stage: Mr Fullerton, Between the Sheets. Martha’s Vineyard Playhouse: Visitors. Shakespeare & Company: Antony & Cleopatra, As You Like It, Henry V, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Othello, Richard III, The Tempest, Twelfth Night, Two Gentlemen of Verona.