“A sad tale’s best for winter; I have one of sprites and goblins.” So says the boy Mamillius in Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale, the annual Fall Show of Princeton University’s Program in Theater and Dance, a division of the University’s Center for the Creative and Performing Arts.

Photo Credit: George Vogel

The Winter’s Tale shows Shakespeare, in the final stage of his theatrical career, stretching the boundaries of both tragedy and comedy to create a play unique in its form and lacerating in its exploration of the havoc that the sprites and goblins of a jealous imagination can wreak.

Directed by faculty member Tracy Bersley, a New York-based director and choreographer, this reimagining of Shakespeare’s play takes place in the memory of its leading character – an attic library of regret and recrimination designed by Jeffrey Van Velsor, a longtime collaborator of Ms. Bersley’s.

The Winter’s Tale features an undergraduate cast including Kut Akdogan ‘10, Paul Bangiola ‘11, Sara-Ashley Bischoff ’09, Will Ellerbe ’08, Becca Foresman ’10, Jess Harrop ‘08, Irfan Kherani ’11, Heather May ’10, Georgina Sherrington ’08, Mary Cait Walthall ’08, Sam Zetumer ’09, and Adam Zivkovic ‘10. The cast also includes Pulitzer prize-winning poet Paul Muldoon, Chair of Princeton’s University Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, and his son, Asher Muldoon.