During summer 2025, Wayne State University’s Hilberry Gateway will proudly host the Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s (MSF) 30th anniversary season.

“We’re thrilled to bring the Michigan Shakespeare Festival to Midtown Detroit this summer — and show off the terrific Hilberry Gateway theatre,” said MSF Artistic Director Janice L Blixt.

The 2025 season will take place July 1 through Aug. 10 and consist of Shakespeare’s “Richard III,” featuring festival favorite and Detroit’s own Rico Bruce Wade, and “Much Ado About Nothing” — both directed by Blixt. In addition, also featured will be the world premiere adaptation of George Farquhar’s 1707 “The Beaux’ Stratagem: A Comedy of Bad Manners,” adapted and directed by MSF Artistic Associate Robert Kauzlaric.  

“I’m tremendously excited about this new partnership with Michigan Shakespeare Festival,” said Michael J Barnes, chair of WSU’s Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance. “This is the perfect win-win situation. MSF gets to utilize our new spaces, it offers the students in the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance opportunities to work in an Equity company, and our audiences get the chance to see quality classical theatre.

“I’m also very happy to welcome an alumna of our MFA in acting back to WSU. Jan is now directing her second show with us and the students love working with her. I’m certain Detroit theatregoers will enjoy MSF’s productions, as well.”

In 2023, Barnes approached Blixt of the award-winning classical theatre — who graduated in the 1990s as a member of the former Hilberry Repertory Company — to bring the MSF to the newly built Hilberry Gateway.

“Wayne State’s theatre’s focus has changed over the years to better reflect its community, so we are not doing as much ‘classical’ theatre and are blending in more contemporary scripts and musicals,” Barnes said. “Many of our long-standing subscribers and donors inquire about our doing more Shakespeare and ‘classical’ playwrights. Having MSF in residency at Wayne State in the summers will fill that gap.”

After being dark for 2024 to reorganize, following the financially turbulent professional theatre seasons after the Covid pandemic closed regional theatres for two years, the MSF will be producing again in 2025.

Under the direction of Blixt since 2010, the MSF remains a fully professional union theatre and will continue to hire artists from all around the Great Lakes region and nationally.

It remains committed to the mission statement, said Blixt, “to inspire and entertain diverse audiences with evocative, interesting, and epic productions of classical theatre’s greatest plays” and to also support the education of Wayne State students through workshops and being in residence. Familiar MSF artists will still be featured in the company, she said.

The MSF will also continue the tradition of featuring “Bard Talks” about the history and production history of the plays produced. These will take place prior to all Friday and Saturday evening performances after opening nights — and Q&As with the company following all preview and matinee performances.

“We’re looking forward to bringing our amazing classical theatre to Detroit and bringing in audiences looking for professional classical theatre,” Blixt said. “And with the location of the Hilberry Gateway being so close to I-94, to I-75, and the M-10 freeways, we think our Jackson, Ann Arbor, Plymouth/Canton, and Lansing audiences will have a really easy time getting to us — and appreciate all the restaurants, bars, the museums in the thriving Midtown area — making us a perfect evening out or part of a weekend trip.”

All performances will be held at Wayne State University’s Hilberry Gateway, located at 715 Cass Ave, in Detroit. Ample parking is available. Tickets for the Michigan Shakespeare Festival are available for purchase at the Hilberry Gateway Box Office, online, by email or calling 313-577-2972, and at MichiganShakespeareFestival.com.

Ticket prices are based on performance times and days. Discounts are available for seniors, students, teachers, veterans, nurses, and firefighters. Group discounts for six or more are available.

About the College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts

The College of Fine, Performing and Communication Arts is home to today’s aspiring artists, performers, technicians, scholars, dancers, debaters, entrepreneurs, and communication professionals who all represent the college’s legacy of excellence in our respective fields.

The college serves students majoring in 17 undergraduate programs, 10 graduate programs and three graduate certificates through its departments: the James Pearson Duffy Department of Art, Art History and Design, the Maggie Allesee Department of Theatre and Dance, and the departments of communication and music.

From debate to dance, jazz to journalism, and fashion design to center stage, our students create captivating performances, inspire artistic and academic excellence, and conduct innovative research on behalf of our Detroit community.

About the Michigan Shakespeare Festival

The Michigan Shakespeare Festival’s mission is to inspire and entertain diverse audiences with evocative, interesting, and epic productions of classical theatre’s greatest plays.

The Michigan Shakespeare Festival is a nonprofit professional theatre. Originally named the Jackson Shakespeare Festival, it started in 1995 as an outdoor summer event in Jackson's beautiful Ella Sharp Park. A replica Globe was constructed in 1996, and audiences flocked to experience Shakespeare in Jackson.

As the Official Shakespeare Festival of the State of Michigan, the Michigan Shakespeare Festival is a professional Equity theatre company (LOA/LORT) dedicated to producing world-class classical plays.