Canon Fodder: Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3

With our 2014 production of Othello GreenStage will complete Shakespeare's canon! We're continuing our celebratory look back at every play.

Today's plays are Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3, which GreenStage performed in 2006.

This was something of an epic GreenStage show, with all three plays edited into one. It ran two hours and 45 minutes, but audiences loved it! In all 15 actors played 65 characters in 70 scenes. The cast (involved in a rumble in the photo above) included a host of GreenStage regulars such as, Erin Day, Tom Steward (returning to the GreenStage this summer in Love's Labour's Lost), Meredith Armstrong, Don MacEllis, and Ryan Higgins. It was the first GreenStage show for Johnny Patchamatla, who will play Othello this summer, and Sam Hagen. Therese Diekhans played Gloucester. 

Holmes recalls cutting 20 pages from the script two days before the play opened, killing off four characters and several scenes. He admits to driving the actors crazy, but also says it was the tightest group of actors he's ever seen.

How many of GreenStage's productions have you seen? Check our complete list of shows since 1989!