American Players Theatre to perform its first "King Lear" since 1999

A season teaser from The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Mike Fischer.

Having set a new season attendance record before its final 2015 play even opens this weekend, American Players Theatre has just announced its 2016 season of nine plays.

The big news involves the return of "King Lear" after a 17-year hiatus; each of Shakespeare's other three major tragedies has been performed at least once at APT since then, with both "Hamlet" and "Othello" having been performed twice. "King Lear" will feature Jonathan Smoots in the title role and will be directed by Chicago-based William Brown, whose "A Streetcar Named Desire" at APT this past summer is the best production I've seen anywhere thus far this year.

Among Brown's many previous APT triumphs is a 2009 production of Shakespeare's much lighter "The Comedy of Errors." Former APT artistic director David Frank will direct "Comedy" next summer, marking APT's tenth production of this crowd-pleasing romp. The twinned servants - part of the farcical fun and ordinarily cast as men - will be played by Cristina Panfilio and Kelsey Brennan, who also teamed up to hilarious effect in 2014 APT productions of "The Importance of Being Earnest" and "Travesties."

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