Kareish Thony, Amira Adarkwah, and Sasha Villefranche (left to right) as the three Witches, and Alex Conboy as Woman in rehearsal for the musical Macbeth in Stride. Photo credit: Chloe Li

(PRINCETON, NJ) -- The Lewis Center for the Arts' Program in Theater and Music Theater at Princeton University presents Macbeth in Stride, a musical by Obie Award-winning theater artist Whitney White that employs rock, pop, gospel, and R&B to investigate some of the most familiar narratives of Shakespeare's "Scottish play." The production is directed by Princeton senior Layla Williams. Performances are April 4-5, April 10-12, 2025 at the Berlind Theatre at McCarter Theatre Center (91 University Place) in Princeton. Showtime is 8:00pm each night.

Macbeth in Stride preserves the madness, mystery, and macabre of Shakespeare’s classic play, while infusing its own twist of irony, indulgence, and introspection, some so commonplace, audiences have forgotten to treat them as narratives at all. The show asks: What’s the story that framed you before you were even you? What does it mean to be a woman? A Black woman? And what happens when the one thing we think she desires is power? At times inhabiting Lady Macbeth’s perspective, the character of Woman interrogates love, ambition, and power in a high-energy and interactive concert-style performance with audience interaction. Joined by the Witches as singing collaborators, and the character of Man, the work explores what it means to try to change a story whose end is already predetermined and has been lived a thousand times before.

The musical has its roots in work by White while in Brown University/Trinity Rep’s M.F.A.  program. Since then, the show has been presented at Yale Repertory Theatre, Philadelphia Theatre Company, and Shakespeare Theatre Company, and in late April at Brooklyn Academy of Music. White notes that Macbeth in Stride is the first of a five-part series commissioned by American Repertory Theatre excavating the women from Shakespeare’s canon.

Tickets are $20 and $10 for students available through the McCarter Box Office. The Berlind Theatre is fully accessible with wheelchair and companion seating and an assistive listening system. The April 11 performance will be open captioned. Guests in need of other access accommodations are invited to contact the Lewis Center at LewisCenter@princeton.edu at least one week prior to the event date.

Princeton senior Layla Williams proposed directing Macbeth in Stride as her independent project toward a minor in the Program in Theater and Music Theater, in addition to her major in African American studies. Students earning a minor take the course “Introduction to Theater Making,” four other theater, music theater, music, or dance courses, and provide non-performing support for one or two other Program productions, with the option to propose a senior project in spring of their junior year; the Program’s season is primarily shaped by the interests and proposals of the students in the Program. Students’ senior projects are advised by the faculty with support from the professional staff in music, costumes, scenery, light, sound, stage management and producing. Any student can pursue the minor; no application or audition is required, and students with no prior experience are welcome.

Williams’ goals for the project are to examine how to subvert the narrative structure of the American musical that traditionally has silenced Black women, how elements of magical realism allow audiences to reimagine Blackness within theater, and the role and function of a chorus, in this case the three witches.

Williams, who is from Land O’Lakes, Florida, is majoring in African American studies and pursuing minors in theater and creative writing with a focus on screenwriting. Her academic work has led to directing Macbeth in Stride as a culminating project. As a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellow, she researched Black musical theater and Black theater institutions. She notes that courses like “Theatrical Design Studio” and “Theater Making Studio” have been vital influences in the way she approaches the rehearsal process as a theatermaker and collaborator, and courses like “Black Performance Theory” and “Casting History, Theory and Practice” have served as foundational theoretical frames for approaching her work as a director and a scholar. Williams has served all four years at the University on the board of Princeton University Players, the only student-run musical theater group on campus. It was with this group that she directed her first show in her sophomore year.

The student cast includes Alex Conboy as Woman, Sasha Villefranche, Kariesh Thony and Amira Adarkwah as the Witches, and Rowan Johnson as Man.

Faculty member Aaron Landsman is co-producing the show with faculty member Solon Snider Away as music director conducting the live band. The student production team includes Sahaf Chowdhury as set designer, Alex Slisher as lighting designer, Jeanna Raphael as stage manager, and Myrah Charles and Precious Opaola as assistant stage managers with Adarkwah as rehearsal assistant stage manager, all mentored by Vera Fei. Professional members of the production team include Miriam Patterson as costume designer and Nathan Leigh as sound designer. Faculty advisors include Shariffa Ali, Elena Araoz, Tess James, and Yoshi Tanokura with Itohan Edoloyi as a lighting advisor on technical rehearsals.

Visit the Lewis Center website to learn more about this event, the Program in Theater and Music Theater, and the more than 100 public performances, exhibitions, readings, screenings, concerts, lectures, and special events presented by the Lewis Center each year, most of them free.