SEASON 2, 2025: SKULLDUGGERY

ShakespeareSlayFest: Season 2: Skullduggery
We won an award. Slay.
Another f*cking Shakespeare festival? - again!? Yup.
We’re back! And damn is our line up killer.
Shakespeare sailed through the #metoo movement scot free and no one’s talking about it.
Sure, he’s been dead for over 400 years and there were bigger Weinsteins to fry- blah blah blah, you heard all of this last year.
You know, in 2024? When the annual New York Shakespeare awards awarded SlayFest NYC’s BEST SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL
- who cares if the Public’s Shakespeare In The Park was out of commission.
We won and you must’ve heard the news?! 

This year while Twelfth Night was back under the stars, we decided to go to the Atelier at Theaterlab NYC;
to the heights of deviousness for Shakespeare SlayFest: Season 2: Skullduggery.
Darker, dirtier, skullduggeryer.
6 works in the works, in various stages of dress,
and ready to come at you from the depths of 6 writers
who have flipped the script and turned it around onto the Bard. 

Join us at Theaterlab NYC in the Atelier
- 357 W 36th St, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10018
on SUNDAY 9th of NOVEMBER at 2:00pm.
Doors open at 1.30pm

Producing Director Carla Kissane (she/her), and Artistic Director Grant Cartwright (he/him) (remember us?!)
have curated a collection of sexy and subversive works offended by; or in the least inspired by Shakespeare.
Our love of the Bard is our superpower and we want to inspire a curiosity, love and relevancy of Shakespeare in 2025.
We also wanna call things like they are.

Shakespeare Slay Fest: Season 2: Skullduggery will present excerpts of 6 works. A weaving of slayage; Hippolyta or Cupid Is A Knavish Lad Thus To Make Poor Females Mad (III.ii) or Fuck Women; Enter Two Murderers; Sonnets and the Self, Hey Nonny Nonny!; and If I Sing; plus a short film and talkback All the World’s a Stage, each revealing our collective humanity through challenging the cannon and the idea of the man, or woman - gasp! that resides in the popular, collective and historical consciousness. We take aim at the idea of His elevation and aim to make the works accessible for all. NYC keeps getting into bed with the Bard - Othello, Denzel, Jake, Romeo, Rachel - same old same old. November 9, get in bed with us. We’re a new lay. Slay.

Details & Inquiries | shakeslayfest@gmail.com 

Webpage: https://www.shakespeareancabaret.com/skullduggery/

Instagram: @shakeslayfest

Linktree: 
https://linktr.ee/shakeslayfest

The Atelier at Theaterlab NYC,
357 W 36th St, 3rd floor, New York, NY 10018
Sunday November 9th, 2pm - 5pm

The Program
'Enter Two Murderers' - a staged reading
'If I Sing' - a workshop performance
'Sonnets and the Self' - a workshop performance
'All the World's a Stage' - a film preview and talkback
Hippolyta or Cupid Is A Knavish Lad Thus To Make Poor Females Mad (III.ii) or Fuck Women’ - a workshop performance
‘Hey Nonny Nonny!’- a workshop performance

Below are some of the incredible artists of 2025 season...

Skullduggery Slay Fest Artists
Martin Jude Farawell: Playwright & Performer of 'If I Sing'
C.S.E Cooney : Playwright of ‘Hey Nonny Nonny!’
Lee Durkee: Playwright of 'Enter Two Murderers'
Miriam Grill: Director of 'Hey Nonny Nonny!'
Grant Cartwright: Playwright & Director of ’Hippolyta or Cupid Is A Knavish Lad Thus To Make Poor Females Mad (III.ii) or Fuck Women’
Cheryl Eagan Donovan: Filmmaker of 'All the World’s a Stage’
Carla Kissane: Solo Performer of Shakespearean Cabaret: 'Sonnets and the Self'
Isaac Raz: Composer & musical director for 'Sonnets and the Self'

Shakespeare Slay Fest Team
Grant Cartwright: Artistic Director
Carla Kissane: Producing Director
Laura Bray: Casting Associate
Luisa Joya: Social Media Manager
Mix: Graphic Design
Instagram: @shakeslayfest

OUR FESTIVAL IS FREE, PLEASE CONSIDER A DONATION TO HELP US PAY OUR ARTISTS!

DONATE HERE: https://fundraising.fracturedatlas.org/sh-not-speare-the-true-story-of-how-carlotta-b-from-1593-cancelled-shakespeare-you-re-welcome

PRESS RELEASE
TICKETS FREE - RSVP REQUIRED!
INSTAGRAM

SUPPORT THE SLAY!

DONATE HERE

All contributions made to Shakes Slay Fest count as donations to a registered 501(c)3 and are put towards paying our artists. Donations are fully tax deductible to the extent permitted by the law