The Roundtable

Reaching out and waiting: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival presents the world premiere of "Penelope"

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The world premiere of “Penelope” a new musical about Penelope, the wife of Odysseus, begins performances this weekend at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in Garrison, New York. It runs there through September 17 and will continue its journey with a production at Signature Theatre in Washington D.C. next Spring.

In this telling, the famously patient spouse is fed up and has some things she wants to say. With a glass of bourbon in hand, she takes the microphone to chronicle those twenty years waiting for her husband to return to the small island kingdom of Ithaca.

“Penelope” features music and lyrics by Alex Bechtel with a book by Bechtel, Grace Mclean and Eva Steinmetz. Steinmetz also directs. Actor Tatiana Wechsler plays the title character. Alex Bechtel and Tatiana Wechsler join us.

Sarah LaDuke

Sarah has been a public radio producer for over fifteen years. She grew up in Saranac Lake, New York where she worked part-time at Pendragon Theatre all through high school and college. She graduated from UAlbany in 2006 with a BA in English and started at WAMC a few weeks later as a part-time board-op in the control room. Through a series of offered and seized opportunities she is now the Senior Contributing Producer of The Roundtable and Producer of The Book Show. During the main thrust of the Covid-19 pandemic shut-down, Sarah hosted a live Instagram interview program "A Face for Radio Video Series." On it, Sarah spoke with actors, musicians, comedians, and artists about the creative activities they were accomplishing and/or missing.

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