Get outdoors on Market Square in downtown Knoxville July 12 through August 12. The Tennessee Stage Company is presenting its 28th season by featuring Henry the IV, Part I and Cymbeline. Both productions are comedies.

Cymbeline opens the festival on Thursday, July 12, at Market Square. It continues through August 12, alternating performances with Henry the IV, Part One which runs July 12 - Aug. 12. Performances begin at 7:00 pm.

Additional performances will be held at Scruffy City Hall on Market Square and the Blount County Public Library in Maryville. (2 p.m. matinees on Sunday, July 22 (Cymbeline), Sunday, August 5 (Henry the IV, Part One), indoors at Scruffy City Hall; 6:30 p.m. Monday, July 30, Cymbeline Blount County Public Library.)

Admission is free to the Market Square and Blount County Public Library performances. The indoor matinees at the Scruffy City Hall are $15. A donation basket is passed at Market Square with a $10.00 suggested donation. Special VIP seating is available on the Square for $15.00.

CYMBELINE July 12, 14, 20, 22, 26, 28, Aug. 3, 5, 9, 11
7:00 pm nightly outdoors on Market Square

Shakespeare’s version of a romantic fairy tale (and a fractured one at that) complete with a wicked step-mother, mistaken identities, star crossed lovers, beheadings, outlaws in the mountains living in caves, an invasion by the Roman legions…it’s hard to find something that isn’t in this play! “Golden lads and girls all must/As chimney sweepers, come to dust.

HENRY IV, Part One
July 13, 15, 19, 21, 27, 29, Aug. 2, 4, 10, 12
7:00 pm nightly outdoors on Market Square

The play that brings to the forefront what is perhaps Shakespeare’s most beloved character - the fat knight Falstaff! With the Crown Prince of England in tow, Falstaff makes a wreck of the English countryside, robbing, drinking, boasting and creating mayhem wherever he goes. All is well until the ongoing turmoil over who is the rightful King breaks into open warfare: Falstaff must prove himself a fighter or a coward and the young Prince Hal must also prove his worth at last: “The better part of valor is discretion.”

Shakespeare on the Square productions are performed on a rough replica of the new Globe Theatre in London (a reconstruction of Shakespeare’s original theater). The plays are presented in the timeless style of Elizabethan theatrical presentations.

The Tennessee Stage Company encourages our audiences to spend an evening on the Square: do a little shopping, have a nice dinner, see the play and maybe stop by a pub afterward (as Falstaff would have wanted!). All of this and more is available on Market Square nightly.