Oscar Wilde’s classic play, The Importance of Being Earnest is brought to Kentuckiana!

It's Earnest, Y'All! - Late May 2023
The perfect comedy of preposterous people, and improbably parentage gets a new lease of life on the border between the South and Mid-West! Rather than society of London and the bucolic gentility of Hertfordshire, The Chamber Theatre tweaks the accent on Wilde to find its way into contemporary Louisville and Southern Indiana in a site specific performance of the play. Directed by Martin French, this cast features Jordan Aikin, Annie Bulleit, Sean Childress, Ev Davis, Marc McHone, Joe Monroe, Todd Padgett, Bailey Preston, Piper Shanks, and Janice Walter.
More details available at our facebook page soon!

...
The Chamber Theatre Announces 2018/19 Season
...

We are pleased to announce our 2018/19 season, featuring one new, and one returning production. In early November, we offer our adaptation of Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw’s much loved comedy, in an adaptation set to make it more immediate for today. Directed by Martin French, Pygmalion will be staged in Hope Community & Coffee, at the Mellwood Arts Center. Additionally, we are planning a revival of our popular production All People Sneeze for a tour of neighbourhood venues in Louisville and beyond. All People Sneeze is a selection of Anton Chekhov’s short stories adapted for performance, edited and adapted from the Russian by Polina Shafran, who also directs.

The Chamber Theatre transforms Chekhov’s short stories into plays

By ELI KEEL, Insider Louisville
This time, The Chamber’s novel approach comes from digging into the works of Chekhov that haven’t been on stage much, or possibly at all. In other countries, including Chekhov’s homeland of Russia, he is just as recognized as a prolific writer of short stories.
The Chamber co-artistic director Polina Shafran, who also hails from Russia, has adapted several of these short stories into plays.

READ MORE
...
The Chamber Theatre Announces 2017/18 Season
...

By ASHLIE STEVENS, WFPL
Louisville’s Chamber Theatre has announced its 2017/18 season, which will include two productions: “Tales from the Hills” and “All People Sneeze.”
Both Shafran and French say there is an emphasis this season on narrative and commonalities between cultures. “One of the things about ‘Tales from the Hills’ in tandem with ‘All People Sneeze’ is that it’s a great opportunity to explore storytelling,” French says. “And that’s what we want to do this time around — look at plays, look at stories and how they are told.”

READ MORE
The Chamber Theatre is coming to the library

As part of the Fast Class series and in partnership with Louisville Free Public Library and Sister Cities Of Louisville The Chamber Theatre will perform their critically acclaimed one-act comedy “The Proposal” written by Anton Chekhov, translated by the The Chamber Theatre's co-artistic director Polina Shafran and directed by another co-artistic director Martin French. The performance will be followed by a lecture from UofL professor Charles Ziegler on Russia’s tumultuous history, focusing on the cultural impact - past, present, and future - of politics.

READ MORE
...
New company stages classic, A Doll's House
...

By ELIZABETH KRAMER, Journal Sentinel
Despite being nearly 138 years old, theater companies and audiences worldwide find the play still resonates with the often limited opportunities many women have today.
This month, Louisville’s new company Chamber Theatre tests those waters when it brings “A Doll’s House” to stage under director Martin French, who is also co-artistic director of the company.

READ MORE
The Chamber Theatre continues its Modernist focus with Strindberg’s ‘Creditors’
...

By ELI KEEL, Insider Louisville
As a young company, The Chamber Theatre is stepping into that gap and bringing the newer classics to the stage.
For the 2016-17 season, the company is producing two shows, “Creditors” and Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House.” French says he wants to keep the season small: “Just the two, very small scale,” he adds. “Better to do two right than four nearly there. That’s the theory anyway.”

READ MORE
Marriages On The Verge

By ASHLIE STEVENS, WFPL
Long-held secrets, fears of infidelity, meddling exes — these are themes that might seem most at home played out on “Days of Our Lives.” But they’re also the makings of “marriages on the verge,” a motif that connects The Chamber Theatre’s upcoming season. This year, co-artistic director Martin French says he decided to focus on 19th century Scandinavian playwrights.

READ MORE
1

Strindberg in Bergman

Exclusive essay by Professor Egil Törnqvist on August Strindberg's great influence on Bergman – and (in a manner of speaking) vice versa.

Strindberg in Bergman

Exclusive essay by Professor Egil Törnqvist on August Strindberg's great influence on Bergman – and (in a manner of speaking) vice versa.

READ MORE
Polina Shafran translates Chekhov for you

By KEITH WAITS, Arts-Louisville
Louisville can boast an entire community of home grown theatre artists, and more than a few that have relocated from other cities in the United States, but a much smaller number have found their way here from other countries; Polina Shafran is one. Born in Russia, she came of age in Israel after moving there with her family, and then came to Louisville about five years ago.

READ MORE
...