Designed to bring the Lantern into your home, or at least to your laptop or mobile device, we hope that sharing these artistic adventures will bring you some solace and pleasure now when it is needed most. These programs also create opportunities for our theater artists to earn income and practice their craft while theaters across our city – and the world – are closed.

Scheduling Update

Thank you so much for your interest in our Shakespeare NOW virtual reading series. This week has been a difficult one, for our city and for our nation. In consultation with the theater artists engaged in Troilus and Cressida, we have decided to postpone this reading.

The mission of Lantern Theater Company is to produce plays that investigate and illuminate what is essential in the human spirit and the spirit of the times. Right now, the spirit of the times is changing at a pace and with an intensity not experienced since the 1960s, and it is appropriate that we pause to reflect and reassess how this theater company can best serve our artists, our audience, and our broader community. Standing in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, we hope and believe that artists and artistic organizations can and will contribute to making serious, real, and lasting change.

As always, we are grateful for your support and your engagement.

Lantern Artistic Director Charles McMahon is collaborating with some of your favorite Philadelphia actors to read Shakespeare's sonnets, and to demonstrate how directors and actors work together to bring meaning and clarity to poetry and dialogue. These short videos will help you enjoy these beautiful poems in fresh new ways.

We'll share additional sonnets throughout the spring and summer.

Explore the world of our directors and designers with brief articles and video montages focused on music, scenic, and costume elements from past and future Lantern productions. We will also regularly post dramaturgical articles that provide insights about the plays featured in our Shakespeare NOW series.