“do not assist the storm.”

Pericles, Prince of Tyre was wildly popular during Shakespeare’s lifetime and for generations after. It was among his most frequently performed works, reopening theatres after periods of closure, plague, and cultural upheaval. That history feels fitting. Few plays concern themselves so completely with what it means to endure.

At its heart, this is a story about survival: about losing one’s way and continuing forward nonetheless. It is a story of storms—literal, emotional, and spiritual. Its characters are shipwrecked, displaced, separated from those they love, and forced repeatedly to confront a world that often feels arbitrary and unjust. Yet they persist.

For centuries, the play has puzzled scholars and critics because it refuses to behave like other Shakespeare plays. It moves across continents and years, shifts between comedy and grief, myth and reality, song and spoken word. But perhaps Pericles is only troublesome when we insist that it become something it was never trying to be. Seen on its own terms, it is expansive, strange, funny, deeply moving, and profoundly human.

This production embraces that spirit. Rather than treating Pericles, Prince of Tyre as merely a puzzle to solve, we approach it as a living folk tale—one carried through music, movement, memory, and storytelling; a tale passed from voice to voice, generation to generation. Through light, sound, physical storytelling, and song, we invite you into a world that exists somewhere between dream and memory, where grief and wonder often occupy the same space.

Ultimately, Pericles, Prince of Tyre offers something deceptively simple: hope. Not the easy certainty that everything will be fine, but the harder-earned belief that even after unimaginable loss, healing remains possible. That after the longest night, morning still comes.

As our song reminds us:

“Though dark the sea and frail our hope,
When hearts are tempest-torn,
Love watches through the longest night—
The tide shall turn with morn.”

It is perhaps an important thought to carry with us as we navigate the storms of our own lives.