Our time has come: New Swan is thrilled to be featured in two premier publications this week!
Charles McNulty, theater critic for the LA Times and drama scholar extraordinaire, included New Swan in his list of best LA-area theaters. Check out the article here (if you are a subscriber). Here's what he said:
New Swan Shakespeare Festival. Set on the UC Irvine campus, this open-air, Elizabethan-style portable theater is one of the hidden gems of the SoCal Shakespeare scene. The productions in the festival’s summer repertory season, full of lunar magic, are distinguished as much for their poetic sensitivity as for their interpretive boldness. Founding Artistic Director Eli Simon leads a company composed of professional guest artists, UCI alums, current graduate and undergraduate drama students and faculty.
In addition, New Swan's 2025 production of Measure for Measure, directed by Beth Lopes, has been featured on the cover of Quarto Magazine, in an excellent full-spread essay by Neah Lekan: https://www.flipsnack.com/quarto/fall-winter-2025-26-c9qt0ww8a6.
Quarto is the publication of the Shakespeare Theater Association. The cover features Annelise Hermsen as Mariana; photo by Jesús López Vargas.