English-language 'Lear' has its premiere at Prague Castle's Summer Shakespeare Festival

The Summer Shakespeare Festival is set to return to Prague Castle on June 25, featuring new productions of Othello and King Lear, the latter performed in English with Czech subtitles, organizers announced Tuesday.

The 2025 edition of the long-running open-air event will run through Sept. 6 in Prague, Brno, Ostrava, and Bratislava, with more than 140 performances across 13 titles.

The season opens with Othello, directed by Braňo Holiček and staged at the Supreme Burgrave’s Office at Prague Castle. The script is adapted from the celebrated Czech translation by Martin Hilský, who said modern audiences will still get the full emotional force of the play despite some necessary cuts.

“No theatrical artery was severed,” Hilský told reporters. “We trimmed, but kept the soul.”

Actor Robert Mikluš takes on the title role of Othello, describing the tragic hero as “beautiful and jealous”—a groundbreaking character for Shakespeare’s time. “He can love and hate at the same time. That’s humanity,” Mikluš said. Jan Cina and Vojtěch Vodochodský will alternate as Iago, while Sara Sandeva plays Desdemona.

The Taming of the Shrew (Skrotenie zlej ženy), performed in Slovak, is also premiering in Prague. Dramaturg Janka Zednikovičová emphasized the play’s modern relevance, saying, “It’s more of an appeal to society that we are equal as men and women.”

King Lear, performed in English with Czech subtitles, debuts on July 29. Directed by Guy Roberts, the production features Lane Davies as Lear and Jessica Boone as the jester, alongside other actors from the Prague Shakespeare Company.

“King Lear is widely acknowledged as Shakespeare’s greatest tragedy and one of the greatest English-language plays ever written,” Roberts said in an interview with Expats.cz, adding that the play’s themes of love and duty, power and loss, old age and youth, good and evil are as resonant today as they were in 1606 when first performed.

Lane Davies, who has previously appeared in U.S. sitcoms Seinfeld and 3rd Rock from the Sun, premiered his Lear in the PSC's 2023 English-language production at Prague’s Estates Theatre. With decades of theatrical experience, Davies sees this role as a perfect fit, combining the wisdom of age with the energy needed for Shakespeare’s aging monarch.

 “A younger actor can play Lear effectively, as it requires a great amount of energy, but there's a certain amount of life and stage experience that only comes with age,” Davies said.

In addition to new productions, the festival will reprise several audience favorites, including Macbeth, The Tempest, As You Like It, and The Merry Wives of Windsor. Ostrava will stage Twelfth Night featuring Kamila Janovičová and Vladimír Polák.

Last year’s festival drew approximately 100,000 attendees—10,000 more than in 2023—and presented 14 productions over 162 evenings.