The Play’s the Thing: Tennessee Stage Company Opens 35th Season of Shakespeare

Shakespeare poses timeless questions—about love in Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing, jealousy and suspicion in Othello, and war and leadership in Henry V. His explorations still resonate today, and our ability to reframe these stories in modern contexts is why they endure. 

For over three decades, the Tennessee Stage Company has brought these themes to life through its Shakespeare performances, continually evolving with Knoxville’s downtown. I recently sat down with Artistic Director Tom Parkhill to reflect on the company’s past and get a preview of this summer’s performances, which start this Thursday.

The 2025 summer season began with The Winter’s Tale at Mabry Hazen House in May. In July, Hamlet and Love’s Labour’s Lost will be staged at Ijams Nature Center, marking 35 consecutive years of Shakespeare in Knoxville.

Before looking at those performances, we talked about the company’s rich history and its role in shaping Knoxville’s burgeoning theater scene.

History of the Tennessee Stage Company

The origin of TSC starts with the failure of four actors, Tom Parkhill, Mark Creter, Creter’s wife Jerry Keith Lyles and Steve Patrick, auditioning at the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival in 1989. The quartet were working at the Conley Jones Barn Dinner Theater in Greensboro, North Carolina (where Robert De Niro had one of his first professional jobs). None felt good about their audition, and they commiserated at a local sandwich shop.

Parkhill recalled that “Keith Lyles started talking about the fact that her father wanted to set her up in business and thought that she ought to open a daycare center, but she thought she’d rather have a theater. So I asked her ‘Is this a real thing? Could your dad give you enough money to start a theater?’ and she said oh yeah.” Parkhill managed a theater in Galveston, Texas in 1978 and felt like he could again.

Encouraged by the possibilities, the group approached Lyles’ father, who had recently invested in a new concept of commercial student housing near the University of North Carolina. He offered them $50,000 to support a new theater company. After considering cities like Durham, Raleigh and Charleston, Parkhill suggested his hometown of Knoxville. In 1990, they discovered the Bijou Theatre—far from the landmark it is today—and fell in love with it. Although their focus wasn’t initially on Shakespeare, they staged their first year of plays there.

Shortly afterwards, Steve Patrick met Jim Begalla, who was overseeing the transformation of World’s Fair Park into a city park. With little happening at the park, Begalla proposed using the Amphitheatre to join the growing trend of Southern Shakespeare in the Park Festivals — following the lead of events like the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, which launched in 1988. He offered the Tennessee Stage Company a substantial share of the box office and used the production to help establish the Amphitheatre as a legitimate ticketed venue.

I attended that first play at the Amphitheatre as a 21-year-old English major at the University of Tennessee who had just finished my first Shakespeare course and was sold. So were a lot of others. Parkhill told me that “Shakespeare very quickly became very popular, and we could sell it. People would come and were enthusiastic about it and anything else we did just sort of disappeared quietly.” The performances and group became East Tennessee Shakespeare in the Park, and the idea of being a general repertory group faded.

Parkhill credited the success partially to the lack of previous Shakespeare produced in Knoxville. He could recall only one production of Henry IV, Part One at the Carousel Theatre.

The company focused on summer Shakespeare and a new play work in the winter. He noted that “for the last 30-something years [Knoxville] has had access to Shakespeare on an ongoing basis.”

After the Amphitheater closed in the late ’90s, the company partnered with Amy Hubbard’s Actors Co-op and the Black Box Theater at Homberg Place in Bearden to present Shakespeare in the Box—small-cast productions staged in 2001 and 2002. During this time, they searched for a new home, considering a return to the Bijou and their current location at Ijams Nature Center.

Timing proved crucial. As downtown revitalization kicked off, especially the then-boarded-up Market Square, Parkhill was invited to lunch by Mickey Maloney from the City Office of Special Events and Miranda Clark of the new Market Square District Association. At the time, people needed a reason to visit the Square. Maloney and Clark offered the company a space—and Shakespeare on the Square was born. Parkhill recalled his technical director, Perry Hawley, predicting that Market Square would one day be huge.

The inaugural year would be 2003, leaving the city one year to get the Square ready. They didn’t make the date. Parkhill said that Maloney knew how to get the right strings pulled. Construction crews put down a form of gravel known as Pug, and the show went on. Privately, the company referred to it as Shakespeare on the Rocks that year. Parkhill said that “it was a good turnout considering that Market Square was a wasteland and they were coming and walking around in mud and gravel.”

In the second year, the company used the grove of trees on Market Square to produce A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and crowds doubled each year until summer productions ranged from 7,000 to 8,000 attendees with donations as the primary income. Urban Guy reported on one of the performances from the heyday on the Square.

Times changed. 

Parkhill noted that events like Shakespeare on the Square and Sundown in the City shifted from being the primary draw to the businesses and atmosphere of the Square to one among many. He noted consistent support from Scott West who did not start music at his venues until plays were done. Later performances became more difficult to hear as crowd noise on the Square increased.

New businesses came on the scene, and interest in maintaining an environment conducive to plays lessened as Market Square itself became the attraction. Additionally, as businesses occupied more storefronts, dressing and storage space became harder to find. 

Then, Covid hit and Market Square closed. 

Rather than canceling, the company partnered with the Health Department, the City and Ijams Nature Center to safely stage plays. Although the Ijams space holds 2,500, audiences were capped at 50. Productions were limited to 10 actors, all wearing face shields—forcing a return to the small-cast format of earlier years. Every show sold out as audiences, eager for entertainment, embraced the change. After 17 years on Market Square, a new era began.

A Winter’s Tale at Mabry Hazen House

In recent years, the Tennessee Stage Company transitioned to two new venues: Ijams Nature Center and the Mabry Hazen House. Now in their fourth year at Mabry Hazen, Parkhill calls it an “enchanting location.” The partnership began with homecoming performances for descendants of the Hazen family, which evolved into full Shakespeare productions on the grounds. Evelyn Hazen, the family’s last descendant, had a fondness for Shakespeare’s history plays, inspiring site-specific stagings throughout the property.

This shift proved to be a fortunate one, establishing a model the company has followed for the past four years. “Our intent—and Mabry-Hazen’s—is for this to continue for years,” Parkhill said. With support from the East Tennessee Foundation, the Haslam Family Foundation and others, the productions remain accessible, with $15 tickets. The Mabry Hazen performances now serve as the gateway to the summer season.

This year’s production was The Winter’s Tale, one of Shakespeare’s so-called “problem plays” or tragicomedies. Directed by H. Caitlin Corbitt, the May 2025 production made inventive use of the site, with the main house standing in as Sicilia, one of the play’s central settings and a gazebo serving as Bohemia.

Act III, Scene III was powerful and visceral during the abandonment of the princess and Antigonus being eaten by a bear (off-stage, of course)! Performances enhanced themes of jealousy, love and redemption.

Ijams Nature Center Plays

Ijams Nature Center offers a peaceful, pastoral setting—though not without the occasional surprise. Parkhill jokes that actors are often “startled or surprised that 1,400 frogs are croaking behind them all night,” (which would be perfect for Aristophanes). Despite occasional interruptions from a nearby shooting range or aircraft from Island Home Airport, the setting is perfectly suited for performances.

So far, performances have averaged 100 per night, through the popularity is growing again. Performances are once again ticketed. Both Mabry Hazen and Ijams performances split the box office, and Ijams is able to raise funds through concession sales.

Tickets remain $15, with “Pay What You Can Thursdays” still in place, and students are admitted free through the Penny for the Arts program. The company is seeking a sponsor to fund ticket blocks for those unable to pay and hopes to partner with Sevier Avenue businesses to offer meal-and-show packages.

For summer 2025, Ijams will host Hamlet and Love’s Labour’s Lost. Parkhill describes the latter as “a really lovely comedy with a totally unexpected ending… It’ll surprise the heck out of you. It’s a real curveball at the end of the play because as we all know, the definition of what makes a Shakespeare comedy a comedy is that everybody gets married.” He, of course, didn’t reveal the ending but said everyone “should definitely come to find out.”

Raine Palmer will play Hamlet. Parkhill recalled directing Raine as a female Richard II before: “We had people leave—but some stayed because she was just that good.” He found the reaction both surprising and telling.

Ophelia will be played by Sarah Wahrmund, a playwright and recent UT Theater graduate. The company previously staged one of her works during A Night of Shorts at the New Play Festival. Increasingly, the focus is on developing local talent rather than bringing in outside names—both to manage costs and to support Knoxville’s growing theater community.

Rehearsals for performances are underway. Thanks to Madison Mansouri of the Tennessee Stage Company for a sneak peek at rehearsals for this summer’s productions.

‘The Lifeblood of Ongoing Vibrant Theater’

The Tennessee Stage Company has stayed true to its roots in producing non-Shakespearean work through its New Play Festival. Parkhill emphasizes that “new plays and new playwrights are the lifeblood of a vibrant theater. If you’re not injecting new life into something, it’s going to die.”

Launched around 1998, the festival has increasingly focused on local talent. While submissions once came from as far as Australia and New Zealand, since 2022 the company has limited entries to Knoxville and surrounding counties. Parkhill notes that “the most important thing a theater can do is be regenerating.”

The festival follows a developmental model. Each play begins with a public reading in the fall at local libraries, with feedback from an audience, dramaturge, and facilitator. A design-focused session helps playwrights refine how their story is told. In January, plays receive staged readings with light rehearsal, now in partnership with Clarence Brown Theatre at its Lab Theatre. In earlier years, selected plays received full productions in a third year—something TSC plans to revive starting next season.

While this year’s featured play isn’t confirmed, Parkhill hints that if all goes to plan, it will be a standout.

Seeing the Upcoming Shows

Performances for Knoxville Shakespeare will be on the following dates:

Love’s Labours Lost

July 17, 19, 25, 27, 31 & August 2, 8, 10

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

July 18, 20, 24, 26 & Aug. 1, 3, 7, 9

You can read more about each play here and purchase tickets here. Come explore Shakespeare’s timeless questions once again with the Tennessee Stage Company this summer at Ijams.