Élise Hanson

When tourism falls in the town of Narancia due to the failing orange crop, the Reverend Mother and Minister for Tourism concoct a plan to drum up the economy: produce a saint. A nun named Sister Immaculata is selected, but unbeknownst to Reverend Mother, Immaculata is midway through a crisis of faith due to her lust for life, pleasure, and adventure.

The Open Syrup: The Bride Got Cracked has the staff of the hotel The Open Syrup in a tizzy. Rhonda the manager does NOT want to serve breakfast. Bradley the superintendent can't fix a leak. Martin the incensed violinist is incensed. And June the bride keeps hiding under furniture to avoid her hippie mother-in-law. Add some mobsters, some alligators, and what may or may not but what definitely is a severed head to the mix, and you've got a day in the life of The Open Syrup!

Starting right at the end of the would-be wedding between Hero and Claudio, Kill Claudio! takes a hard left turn into a surrealist, darkly comic foray into what might have been if revenge had been exacted against Claudio in the way Beatrice requests of Benedick in Act 4, scene 1 of Much Ado About Nothing:
BEATRICE I love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.
BENEDICK Come, bid me do anything for thee.
BEATRICE Kill Claudio.
This exploration of Shakespeare's text does for Much Ado About Nothing what Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead does for Hamlet, expanding on themes, probing character flaws, and throwing in a musical number here and there. Award-winning playwright Elise C. Hanson takes a second dip into the Shakespeare-adjacent realm after her turn with the beloved play To Wit, for which she was a finalist for the David Ross Fetzer Foundation for Emerging Artists in 2015. With Kill Claudio!, a vast knowledge of the bard's work mingles with a biting tongue and acerbic wit in this fanciful and frothy work.

In Yorkshire England in 1908, a young man—Arthur Craven—inherits his family’s estate Greyhawk upon the untimely deaths of both his parents. With the house comes the care of his troubled sister Ada and gambling debts from his brother Sidney. As Arthur’s world shifts and burdens mount, secrets of old come seeping through the cracks, and strange visions interrupt his waking hours, walking like living nightmares through the halls of Greyhawk.

Poppy Cox, Devine Welsley, and Gena Rocity are on a talk show promoting their new
television show, Sugar Cubes. Little do they know that the fashionable ottoman on the
set isn't an ottoman at all, but a bomb! They'll have to put their wits together to defuse
it before it obliterates their fan base.

In September of 1945—mere months after Adolf Hitler’s demise—the president of the United States, Harry S. Truman, gathers for a simple dinner party at the home of his friend Senator Donald Dinkle. With them is renowned novelist Barbara Bubemuenster and the new boyfriend of Margaret, the president’s daughter. Outside the house a bus of passengers is about to crash (in more ways than one). What will happen when the identity of Margaret’s new beau is revealed? Will the mayonnaise heiress ever be able to repurpose her condiment? Can any of these people aspire to identify with their favorite actress, Margot VanHausenfeffer-Biggs? Find out all in: The Secret Son of Hitler!

Playwright Elise C. Hanson has created a take on William Shakespeare unlike any other, and To Wit is brought to life at The Box by New World Shakespeare Company. The play gathers several survivors of Shakespeare’s plays to discuss their trauma. Hanson has a storied and award-winning career and is known for forward-thinking interpretations of Shakespeare. Hanson masterfully uses language as her weapon, weaving complex clauses in modern English and sometimes even writing in sneaky, subtle iambic pentameter and verse.
Act I sees Horatio (Hamlet), Perdita (A Winter’s Tale), Teufel (Titus Andronicus), Queen Bess (Henry VIII), and Bianca (Othello) united on one stage. Act II converges to another plane, where Horatio now guides some of those who didn’t quite make it (Cleopatra, Romeo, Ophelia, and Lady MacBeth), through their transition. In both acts, a headless body lies on the floor, seemingly without explanation or warrant. Existential quandaries are discussed, griefs are expressed, doughnuts are thrown, and blood and water (from Ophelia’s kiddie pool) splash everywhere.

The most notable thing about this refreshing and remarkable work is the words themselves. Rather than relying on cheap tricks to emulate Shakespeare like using Old English “thou” and “thine” and so forth, the complex, tricky language remains. However, it is attainable, mimicking the Bard’s in an alarmingly robust and lyrical way while offering humor, heart, and pathos that everyone can connect with.

But there’s pizza. Which they eat atop a dead body. Such are the metaphors to be found in this wickedly witty piece.