I am late to the party again but I want to make sure I get this out there. Kaylene Howard from the Summit Players Theatre shared this with me late last week. Their season is already underway so don’t wait too long…and if you are in Milwaukee there are a couple of local parks where Hamlet is being presented! So here is a bit of the info that Kaylene shared and info gleaned from the Summit Players Theatre website.
We have a few Milwaukee area local shows this month, including a performances on June 29th at Catalano Square Park in the Third Ward. Additionally, in July, we will have performances relatively locally at Kettle Moraine State Forest, Pike Lake on July 17th, Kohler-Andrae State Park on July 18th, and our closing performance is in Milwaukee at Havenwoods State Park again on July 26th!
The Summit Players present their 2026 season: Shakespeare’s Hamlet. We will once again visit 18 different Wisconsin State Parks this summer for 19 unique shows!
All shows and workshops are presented free of charge. Seating is general admission on a first come, first served basis. Wisconsin State Park Admission is required at most locations and can be purchased upon entry to the park. If you have an annual state sticker already, you are all set.
One of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies. Performed with six actors in under 80 minutes.
With his father’s recent death still looming in his mind, Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark grapples with the truth of his father’s death, his mother’s betrayal and his uncle’s role in all of it. Relationships are torn apart. Deceit will be revealed. At the heart of it all, Hamlet must decide between his duty and his doubt, and learn what it means to be alive amidst power and privilege.
Kith & Kin Theatre describes Of Thread and Thorn as “A brand-new, contemporary play inspired by the women of William Shakespeare’s works. Sisters, Portia, Imogen, and Celia, contend with who they have become and who they once dreamed they would be. This tight-knit ensemble explores the dynamics and individual struggles of the three women in their teens, thirties, and fifties as they each seek to build true friendships with one another and find peace between the lives they were handed, and those they have created for themselves.”
L to R, front row Hailey Kanderski, Sarah Jo Martens, and Autumn Green. L to R, second row Nicole McCarty, Dajanae Williams, and Sandra Renick. Photographer: Adam Laberge and photos courtesy of Kith & Kin Theatre.
Yes, I read the contemporary play part but I focused on the inspired by the women of Shakespeare’s works and thought this would be a marvelous Shakespearean style comedy. So I was caught completely flat-footed by the incredible contemporary family drama that I experienced. Yes, playwright R.M. Laberge has given some thoughtfulness around the character of our characters by giving all six women names taken from the bard. And she has cleverly woven in familiar bits of quotations from his work to propel the story. So every theater buff and Shakespeare scholar in attendance will be poised on the edge of their seats trying to identify them. Spoiler Alert: for instance, when Portia discovers that her husband has left a baby bottle on the wood of the dining room table instead of on a coaster, as she wipes up the water ring, she exclaims: Out Damn Spot! Not really a spoiler, everyone will get that one.
So not the comedy that I was expecting…something far better. Of Thread and Thorn is an intimately drawn family drama of our contemporary era that may actually be closer to a Shakespeare tragedy than just a drama. As described, there are three women, sisters, who “contend with who they have become and who they once dreamed they would be”. But even that sells the story short as there are three other female characters who share their dilemma and have explorations of their own to contend with. The full story is their intersection and sense of self and family and place…and spoiler alert…a search for love that they all genuinely have but maybe don’t actually recognize. Yes, at times this is closer to a tragedy and I will admit to crying twice during the second act and there may have been a moment during the first.
L to R: Sara Jo Martens, Hailey Kanderski, Autumn Green, and Sandra Renick. Photographer: Adam Laberge and photos courtesy of Kith & Kin Theatre.
All of the visible activity in Of Thread and Thorn takes place in the family living/dining room. We first meet the three sisters, there as teens, seated around the dining room table just after their parents have died in a car accident. Their maternal Aunt Roz had been granted guardianship over the girls and is going over how she sees the future. She really isn’t mother material and admits as much and is willing to allow the girls to set their own courses…with Portia, the oldest at 17, the apparent head of household. This scene sets the tone as you would expect and all four characters are clearly defined and their relationships outlined and this sets the stage, so to speak, for what will follow.
Portia lives in a world focused and planned. Sarah Jo Martens’ Portia embraces those traits and more to the point we all feel that she is a little bit anal…well at first and maybe later. But as Portia ages, Martens gives us the feeling that she is clinging to those things for assurance and even late in the play when she realizes that she should let go, Martens shows us a woman who just can’t do that. Autumn Green is the middle sister, Celia. And being stuck in the middle she tends to be the arbiter or middle man in her sister’s arguments. Green does that well but she also clearly explodes when she get exasperated when Portia and Imogen just won’t listen. And her desire to mother or save others takes on other sad appearances in her non-family personal life. Imogen is a free spirit and Haley Kanderski plays her as a human dynamo from the git go. She is only 13 at the intro but already a fireball that I am not sure even Kanderski quite appreciates at first. And Aunt Roz, who is their guardian (of sorts) played to the tipsy hilt by Sandra Renick. Renick sports a larger than life persona here. Not quite sure if Roz is a dreamer, an optimist, an opportunist, or a lost soul. Renick could lead us in any of those directions depending on how the text plays out. These four personalities are distinct and all in their own ways pained. Since we only know them from the time of the accident onward, how much of their exceptionalism is from angst or their environment or their souls.
Sandra Renick. Photographer: Adam Laberge and photos courtesy of Kith & Kin Theatre.
Two other characters hold sway in this drama and play major parts as the eras pass by. Nicole McCarty plays the nanny, Hermione. McCarty is the actual adult in the room at all times. She depicts Hermione as cool, collected, and in charge until a critical pivot point late in the play. McCarty never gives up her sense of self or purpose, but finally shows a new sensitive side of Hermione to Portia. And Portia’s daughter, Regan, is a lightning bolt (as described by Imogene). At times Dajanae Williams is just a blur across the set but as Regan grows and matures, Williams continues to portray Regan as a boundless mass of kinetic energy.
L to R: Sara Jo Martens, Hailey Kanderski, and Autumn Green. Photographer: Adam Laberge and photos courtesy of Kith & Kin Theatre.
There is one other character but he is without portfolio…and that is Portia’s husband. He is only referenced in conversation but his ‘presence’ in the family has significant impact.
R.M.Laberge has written a masterpiece here and her daughter director Kimberly Laberge has given it a full throated presence. Of Thread and Thorns deserves to be on a bigger stage and seen by a larger audience. I am sure that will happen. And no I am not taking anything away from the Laberges by saying that. In the meantime, you should take advantage of seeing this up close and personal in its current intimate setting.
L to R: Nicole McCarty and Sara Jo Martens. Photographer: Adam Laberge and photos courtesy of Kith & Kin Theatre.
Of Thread and Thorn: A Shakespeare Shakeup is being presented by Kith & Kin Theatre from now through May 24, 2026 at Inspiration Studios at 1500 S 73rd St, West Allis WI. There is plenty of on street parking in the neighborhood.
Seating is general admission so get there early for your choice of seating. Ticket information here.
And extra credit reading is HERE in the Playbill. Of particular interest is R.M.Laberge’s note on how she developed the play.
Editor’s Note 5/19/2026. Two things I forgot to include yesterday. One a housekeeping item and the other an observation.
“Of Thread and Thorn is part of World Premiere Wisconsin, a statewide festival celebrating new plays and musicals running January-December 2026.” More into on World Premiere Wisconsin can be found here.
And, listen to the music being played in the theater before curtain, during intermission, and during the stage resets and black-outs between scenes. They too tell the story in a different but just as powerful way. Some theaters excel at setting the tone with the incidental music, and Kith & Kin has done it very well here. But I just don’t know who to credit this time.
Let’s start in the middle, shall we? We are witnessing the Book Of Will at the Lake Country Playhouse and Academy. And I am going to paraphrase here since I wasn’t sitting with the groundlings transcribing the spoken text (YKIYK). After reading a purloined copy of the first folio of William Shakespeare’s collected works, a very drunken and depressed Ben Jonson barges into the Globe Tap Room and explains his three day drunken bender: “I have seen them acted and I have heard them acted but I have never been alone with them before.” And that is the key takeaway from this story. A well told and well imagined telling of what may have happened as the surviving original members of the Globe Theater Company assemble and publish the collected works of William Shakespeare. Without these efforts, the audiences of the 21st Century would never have had the opportunity to see Shakespeare acted or hear Shakespeare exclaimed or to just be alone with him.
left to right, Diane Kallas, Topher Lowmar, Evelyn Ewald, and Paul Weir. Photo courtesy of Lake County Playhouse and Academy.
And now, the beginning: Sophia Bernhardt commands the stage as Hamlet! Bernhardt is impish, over confident, and hams it up to the max and acting for a company in competition to the Globe is working from a tainted script. We can all cringe as she mauls the most famous bit from Shakespeare, To Be or Not To Be! And then Bernhardt dares to appear at the Globe Tap Room and plays the preening star and clearly knows her appearance her makes here a scoundrel. But never fear, Paul Weir’s Richard Burbage, the star in many Globe productions, drives the young Hamlet and the other members of the rogue company from the establishment with of all things, a baseball bat (conveniently hanging from the bar wall along with a number of epees and a badminton racket). Weir’s Burbage is regal, dynamic, eloquent, and maybe just a bit pompous. But clearly in control of his faculties and cleanly recites any number of soliloquies from memory to the amazement of his companions. A fact worth noting as we lose Burbage immediately after this act and the remaining company realizes that he was the only one who knew ALL of the plays and what should they do now?
left to right, Evelyn Ewald, Madison Nowak, and Diane Kallas.Photo courtesy of Lake County Playhouse and Academy.
So let’s discover the marvelous characters that playwright Lauren Gunderson has gifted to us and the remarkable actors who bring them to life.
The anchor or focus is John Heminges, one of the founding members of the Globe Theater. He had given up acting to become the theater’s manager. Naturally when the group decides to assemble Shakespeare’s plays and publish them, they all turn the Heminges as the man to get it done. Cory Klein portrays Heminges as an assured and confident manager of the theater and he agrees that a folio must be produced. But during the work toward publication he expresses regret over leaving acting and at times has doubts about his ability to lead the project. And that introduces a true love story from Gunderson that certainly is worthy of a play about Shakespeare. Diane Kallas is Rebecca Heminges and John’s rock. And she has as much knowledge of the theater and Shakespeare’s importance as anybody in the company and Kallas is a solid source of support and sees past the doubts Klein portrays and insists that he complete publishing the plays. And their final scene together as she takes sick and eventually passes is so full of drama and love that you can’t help be feel choked up as well.
left to right, Cory Klein and Oliver Kuhtz. Photo courtesy of Lake County Playhouse and Academy.
Another theater couple are the Condells. Henry is also a founding member of the Globe and Oliver Kuhtz’s character loves Shakespeare and the Globe and his fellows too. And he is a calming hand during the various events and wholly supports Heminges in the efforts to produce the folio. His wife, Elizabeth, also is involved in encouraging the folio and as played by Evelyn Ewald is also a supporting character for Henry and the others. Ewald is entirely a graceful spirit throughout the change in moods and scenes.
left to right, Cory Klein, Oliver Kuhtz, and Victoria Wozniak. Photo courtesy of Lake County Playhouse and Academy.
Victoria Wozniak plays a very key and central character to pulling together the disparate parts to complete the folio, Ralph Crane. The Globe’s copyist, hand writing out each part for the actors, Wozniak first gives a little bit of push back but once committed is essential to putting the plays in the correct internal order and historical order. Only Crane has handled and read every script in its entirety in the past and other than Burbage probably has the most complete understanding of the entire catalog. Wozniak certainly jumps into the work and provides a get it done no nonsense personality once the real work gets underway. And Alice Heminges is the daughter of John and Rebecca. She is also the barmaid at the Globe Tap Room. Madison Nowak is delightful as Alice. With a quick wit, an eye for who needs another round and who needs to be cut off, flirtatious at times, but always alert to the mood in the room. She would be an agile and competent barkeep in any watering hole hereabouts. She too gives her father the confidence to carry on.
And then there is Ben Jonson. Per David Wise, Jonson is something of a braggart and self-promoting loud mouth. And as a competitor of Shakespeare, willing to belittle and denigrate the bard’s work. And at the Tap Room, he easily imbibes too much and openly flirts with Alice who fittingly puts him in his place. And then the raw shift to depression and drunkenness after reading the portfolio and realizing what we may have all lost and how wrong he was about the plays.
left to right, Oliver Kuhtz, Sophia Bernhardt, Topher Lowmar, Victoria Wozniak, and Cory Klein. Photo courtesy of Lake County Playhouse and Academy.
The publishers: William Jaggard is the villain at first, having published Shakespeare works without license, to hero when he is the only publisher willing to take on the project. William Molitor plays the blind publisher who knows who he is and what he has and is willing to compromise to take on the job and cement his reputation. But as events unfold he softens a bit. His son Isaac Jaggard is the actual publisher of the folio and is eager to take on the task. Topher Lowmar is Isaac, earnest, dedicated, and in love with the idea of publishing Shakespeare’s complete works. He is so involved that his father suggests that he take full publishing credit in the end.
William Molitor, Photo courtesy of Lake County Playhouse and Academy.
And Sophia Bernhardt reappears…a number of times as a crier announcing the next shows at the Globe, to great comic affect, and later as the compositor/printer at Jaggard’s shop. Bernhardt turns from madcap to serious and persnickety artisan for this part of the play.
and just let’s leave Pericles out of it.
Sophia Bernhardt. Photo courtesy of Lake County Playhouse and Academy.
Director Morgan Gates assembled a remarkable cast and kept the action moving across a number of locales, changing emotional expressions, and 18 scene changes. The quick changes and the continuity is marvelous to experience. Although he has the cast working with British accents they never got too thick and in the way, every line was easy to understand. And let’s circle back to Victoria Wozniak who besides playing a number of roles, was the costume designer here. Simply perfect.
Book of Will runs through Feb 1. 2006 at Lake Country Playhouse and Academy in downtown Hartland WI. Tickets here! Run time is 2 hours including plus a 15 minute intermission.
