Free Shakespeare in the Park Festival underway at Cascades Park

The Southern Shakespeare Company is hosting the free Shakespeare in the Park Festival. The festival has been entertaining audiences in Cascades Park since 2015.

This year features performances of William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale at the Adderley Amphitheater. According to the Southern Shakespeare Company, "each Mother’s Day weekend, the mainstage festival performances play Thursday-Sunday at 7:30 PM and SSC’s junior acting troupe presents an abridged spring play at 5:30 PM on Saturday-Sunday."

The festival features food trucks, vendors, merchandise and education.

• Thursday, May 9th is Opening Night.
• Friday, May 10th is Bicentennial Night.
• Saturday, May 11 is ASL Interpreted Day.
• Sunday, May 12 is Mother's Day.

Southern Shakespeare Company

Actor, Nathan Darrow, is the celebrity guest artist of this year's festival. Darrow plays King Leontes. The company says you may know him from having played Edward Meechum on the Netflix series House of Cards and for playing Mr. Freeze on the Fox series Gotham . In 2017, he played Andrew Madoff along with Michelle Pfieffer and Robert DeNiro in The Wizard of Lies directed by Barry Levinson for HBO.

Director, Shanara Gabrielle, has worked as an Artistic Producer at The Kennedy Center, Arena Stage and Shakespeare Theatre Company, according to the company.

Channing Frampton

ABC 27's Channing Frampton will make a cameo appearance during Sunday night's performance at the Adderley Amphitheater. Dr. Stacey Patterson, Mayor John Dailey, and Greg Tish are also slated to make cameo appearances throughout the four-day festival.

According to the festival site, The Bardlings, the junior acting troupe of the Southern Shakespeare Company, will perform a one-hour abridgment of a Shakespearean story prior to the main stage production on Saturday, May 11 and Sunday, May 12, 2024 at 5:30 PM.