"Gem of the Ocean" - by August Wilson - Actors' Shakespeare Project (Roxbury, MA.)
Actors' Shakespeare Project
Presents August Wilson's
"GEM OF THE OCEAN"
Before Schoolboy Barton played the blues, before King Hedley II found his halo, before the Charles siblings fought over the piano…There was Aunt Ester.
Written by August Wilson
In Partnership with Hibernian Hall
Performances:
April 16, 2026 through May 17, 2026
(Contact Box Office for Exact Times)
Hibernian Hall, 184 Dudley Street, # 200, Roxbury, MA. 02119
TICKETS:
Memberships are available. For tickets and more information, call # 617-241-2200 or visit www.ActorsShakespeareProject.org
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COVID-19 PROTOCOLS
Please consult directly with venue for latest COVID-19 and any other health and safety protocols.
ABOUT THE SHOW
Before Schoolboy Barton played the blues, before King Hedley II found his halo, before the Charles siblings fought over the piano…There was Aunt Ester.
ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT is thrilled to continue and deepen our dedication to August Wilson’s canon by returning to the first chronological entry in the American Century Cycle: "GEM OF THE OCEAN."
This transportive and nourishing production explores community, oppression, and healing – as well as featuring the character that Wilson himself described as “the most significant persona of the cycle,” Aunt Ester.
Citizen Barlow thinks his journey is at an end when he arrives in Pittsburgh’s Hill District, but it has only just begun.
Having fled from Alabama and desperate for redemption, he finds himself on the doorstep of Aunt Ester, a 285-year-old “soul cleanser” whose parlor is filled with history, music, and a lively cast of characters with plenty of stories to tell.
As tensions flare between Pittsburgh’s Black community and the local steel mill, Ester sends Citizen on a fantastical journey to the City of Bones – where he must seek spiritual truth, and the key to liberation that his new city so urgently seeks.
ABOUT THE ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT
ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT (ASP), founded in 2004, is an award-winning professional theater company with a Resident Acting Company and extensive education, youth, and community programs. ASP performs and works in found spaces, schools, theaters and neighborhoods to present and explore the robust language, resonant stories, and deeply human characters in Shakespeare’s plays and in works by other great playwrights. Work is ensemble-based and focused on intimacy, storytelling, language, relationships, voice, risk and artistry within and throughout the Boston area.
MISSON
ACTORS' SHAKESPEARE PROJECT believes Shakespeare’s words are urgently relevant to our times. Working as an ensemble of resident company members, ASP brings these words into the voices, bodies, and imaginations of actors, audiences, and neighborhoods. ASP does this through creative projects, including intimate productions and outreach programs that are informed by the spaces in which they happen. These projects inspire civic dialogue, build relationships between people, strengthen communities, and reveal something about what it means to be human here and now.
442 Bunker Hill Street
Charlestown, MA. 02129
# 617-241-2200
