Monmouth College to present 'Macbeth' Oct. 9-11 in Wells Theater
Monmouth, Ill. (09/30/2026) — One of Shakespeare's most well-known and well-beloved tragedies will open the theatre season at Monmouth College Oct. 9-11, which is also Homecoming weekend on campus.
The college's theatre department will present Macbeth - a tale of ambition, fate and the price of choosing power over honor - on the Wells Theater stage.
"This is very accessible Shakespeare, very first-time friendly Shakespeare," said the play's director, theatre professor Todd Quick, who also noted that the performance's length - 100 minutes - is a better fit for audiences than the three-hour run time for Shakespeare's original work. "It really moves."
Quick said Shakespeare penned Macbeth when he was "at the height of his career. He wrote Othello and King Lear around that time, too. Those plays were some of the best writing he ever did. Everything was clicking for him - beautiful, powerful language, robust characters."
To that end, said Quick, "Macbeth and Lady Macbeth are the classic anti-heroes. We're charmed and captivated by them, even as they're doing increasingly terrible things."
"I just love how smooth the writing is," said Abby Zayas '27 of Bloomington, Illinois, who's the dramaturg for the production and will play the role of Macduff. "We did a lot of work on the language and rhythmic quality of Shakespeare, and I've loved how much you can feel and hear that beat as we've gotten more comfortable with the language - how easy it really is to slide into Shakespeare's dialogue if you just give yourself a chance to get used to it."
But wait, there's more
"It's a Shakespeare play with something for everyone," said Quick. "There's supernatural witches, ghosts, apparitions," which leads to the famous line, "Double, double toil and trouble; / Fire burn, and cauldron bubble."
"He's even got some humor in there," added Quick. "Shakespeare was a playwright who understood you gotta put butts in seats."
As dramaturg, Zayas has looked into the history of witchcraft and how it was received both in Shakespeare's time and in medieval Scotland, when the play was set.
"I think odd history like that is very fascinating to us naturally," she said. "I found a lot of evidence that the negative portrayal of witches in Macbeth as these evil supernatural entities is likely more reflective of attitudes in Shakespeare's time rather than in medieval Scotland, when a witch seems to be a wise woman of some sort, rather than a malevolent magic user."
A new experience
With the exception of Robert Robison '27 of Island Lake, Illinois, who's portraying the title character, "this is the first time for everyone in the cast to be performing Shakespeare," said Quick. "Rob not only did a Shakespeare production in high school, but actually played Macbeth. For him, one of the challenges is, now you're all grown up - what are you going to do differently this time in the role?"
Speaking of high school, Quick is welcoming some cast members who'll be acting in their first college play.
"With incoming students, there's always a sense of relief and excitement. The relief is that, yes, we graduated some talented actors, but we've got some strong theatre kids joining us. The audition for Macbeth was three days into the semester. It took courage for them to step up for a Shakespeare audition."
Quick is being assisted by Emma Heiser '27 of Marseilles, Illinois, who "has taken on more responsibility than I normally give a student director." And Zayas is also taking on plenty of responsibility, devising what Quick called "cool ways to make spooky sounds" as the production's sound designer.
"This is my favorite play," said Zayas. "I saw a production a couple years ago in my hometown at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival and just fell in love with it. I love everything it is - the medieval intrigue and magic and the horror elements, as well as the writing."
So she definitely wants the sound to be something special.
"I wanted to try and find a distinct sound for this show - a way for our production to sonically be its own special thing," said Zayas, who consulted Monmouth music professor Justin Swearinger. "I just have to open the grand piano in Dahl Chapel's basement and keep the pedal down, then just start making sound. I've recorded knocks against the wood, riffs on the strings, little melodies, really whatever I can."
On the eve of opening night, the cast will stage a dress rehearsal that's open to area theatre students and teachers. Another memorable rehearsal has already happened - a version of the play where the cast used their own words - not Shakespeare's - as a way to make sure they really understand their lines.
The play will be part of a jam-packed Homecoming weekend on campus, and Quick said his cast and crew will be busy with some of those assignments, including members of the football team, color guard and dance team.
Two of the cast's more veteran performers will not have such obligations - adult actors John Henderson, who "is both terrifying and hilarious" as The Porter, and Howard Moffet, who last year starred as The Narrator in Our Town. He'll play King Duncan.
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Monmouth College will present "Macbeth" at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 9-10 and at 2 p.m. Oct. 11 in Wells Theater on campus. Tickets can be purchased online here.
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Barry McNamara 309-457-2117, mcnamara@monmouthcollege.eduShare this Story
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