All’s Well That Ends Well

Published 4:18 pm Monday, July 28, 2025

William Shakespeare wrote “all’s well that ends well” and, as Kilgore’s own Texas Shakespeare Festival approaches the final curtain call of its historic 40th season, there’s still time to take part in this unique celebration of the Bard’s works.

The festival continues today with two special performances of the much-loved Talent Showcase, in which members of the cast and crew dazzle audiences with songs, dance routines and musical performances for classic Broadway shows.

The final performances of Macbeth, Twelfth Night, Steel Magnolias, Kiss Me Kate and The Princess and The Players continue from Thursday through Sunday. Additional information and tickets available for purchase can be accessed by visiting https://www.texasshakespeare.com (903) 983-8601 or by email at info@texasshakespeare.com.

The idea for the Texas Shakespeare Festival at Kilgore College was developed in the early 1980’s by Founder Raymond Caldwell. The goal was to establish a professional summer theatre for East Texas based in Kilgore that would be housed in the Van Cliburn Auditorium; to create a company with a name that would have broad appeal to professional theatre artists, employing high caliber actors, designers and directors from throughout the nation; to offer professional actors and theatre students the luxury of working on plays from the world’s storehouse of dramatic literary masterpieces; and to create a regional play about the East Texas oilfield discovery to be produced as a cultural historical memento of our unique and colorful heritage.

In June of 1986, the Texas Shakespeare Festival opened its inaugural season as Kilgore College’s contribution to the Texas Sesquicentennial celebration with performances of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and The Daisy Bradford 3 by Gifford Wingate. Each of the fifteen performances played to capacity houses, and the college assured the community that there would be a second season.

The 1987 Festival again performed to sold out houses. In 1988, the Festival added a fourth production and changed to a revolving repertory performance format making it more convenient for patrons to see all of the productions. The 1989 season followed the same repertory format and included three performances of Charlotte’s Web for children, and just as in all three previous years, the attendance grew. In 1993, to answer the need for more performances, the Festival season expanded its performance schedule from three to four weeks.

Now in its 40th season, the Texas Shakespeare Festival has produced 29 plays of Shakespeare’s canon: A Midsummer Night’s Dream (‘86, ‘95, ‘05, ‘15), Much Ado About Nothing (‘87, ‘95, ‘07, ‘17, ‘24), Romeo and Juliet (‘87, ‘96, ‘09, ‘21), Twelfth Night (‘86, ‘97, ‘08, ‘15), Hamlet (‘89, ‘01, ‘11), As You Like It (‘89, ‘01, ‘10, ‘19), The Taming of the Shrew (‘88, ‘96, ‘11, ‘22), The Two Gentlemen of Verona (‘92, ‘99, ‘10), Macbeth (‘88, ‘95, ‘05, ‘14), King Lear (‘94, ‘03, ‘24), Love’s Labour’s Lost (‘94, ‘09, ‘18), The Tempest (‘93, ‘04, ‘22), The Comedy of Errors (‘91, ‘03, ‘13, ‘23), The Merchant of Venice (‘90, ‘04, ‘16), Othello (‘90, ‘07, ‘19), Julius Caesar (‘91, ‘08, ‘24), Measure for Measure (‘93, ‘12), The Merry Wives of Windsor (‘98, ‘12, ‘21), Richard II, Henry V (‘97, ‘16), Richard III, Antony and Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale (‘00, ‘13), All’s Well That End’s Well, Cymbeline, Henry IV, Pt. 1, Coriolanus, King John and Pericles.

TSF has also produced such classics as The Importance of Being Earnest (‘88, ‘98), Tartuffe (‘89, ‘09, ‘18), Cyrano de Bergerac (‘90, ‘05, ‘17), The Misanthrope, She Stoops to Conquer, The Learned Ladies (‘93, ‘10), The Bourgeois Gentleman, The Miser, The School for Scandal, The Hypochondriac, Arms and the Man, The Glass Menagerie, The Miracle Worker, Harvey, The School for Husbands,The Royal Hunt of the Sun, Amadeus, The Beaux’ Stratagem, The Liar, Noises Off, The Nerd, The Foreigner, Blithe Spirit, Born Yesterday, The Book of Will, Nell Gwynn, Pride & Prejudice, Peter and the Starcatcher and the musicals Man of La Mancha (‘94, ‘07, ‘15), Camelot (‘95, ‘13), 1776 (‘96, ‘08), My Fair Lady (‘97, ‘14), Guys and Dolls, The Fantasticks, Fiddler on the Roof , Once Upon A Mattress, Forever Plaid (‘01, ‘02), Chaps!, Ernest in Love, Blood Brothers, Carousel, The Marvelous Wonderettes, 110 in the Shade, Into the Woods, The Bridges of Madison County, The Music Man, Something Rotten!, Sweeney Todd, and the world première musical Revoco.