Troilus and Cressida
Auditions: Late June 2025
Performances: Early September 2025
“Take but degree away: the bounded waters
Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores
And make a sop of all this solid globe.”
What happens when you imagine Shakespeare under the Sea?
Join OrangeMite for its penultimate play of the 39-play Shakespearean canon, Troilus and Cressida–one of the Bard’s fringiest plays–set in an underwater kingdom!
We tell the story of the Trojan War, microplastics, and the existential battle for the health of our oceans and our planet. OrangeMite presents this eco-drama with experienced Shakespearean actors, plastic Greek warriors, and cute ocean puppets–did we also mention live music? There’s never been anything like it.
“There my hopes lie drown’d,
Reply not in how many fathoms deep
They lie indrench’d. ”
Shakespeare’s unconventional play intrigues and perplexes while positing questions of cynism versus optimism and human inaction versus action. When placed through the lens of current ecological crises worldwide, Troilus and Cressida takes on an even more significant and urgent message.
“When the planets
In evil mixture to disorder wander,
What plagues and what portents! what mutiny!
What raging of the sea! shaking of earth!
Commotion in the winds!”
“Waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy.”