On July 16, 2026, Teatro Grattacielo will present the world premiere of Joseph Summer’s ‘The Tempest.’
This new adaptation of Shakespeare’s timeless work transports the story to a 1980s art studio, framing things through the lens of memory, art, and emotion, featuring an adaption by the composer’s daughter, Eve Summer. Conducted by Enrico Fagone, the cast will include Daniel Klein, Kelly Guerra, Sara Kennedy, Benjamin Sieverding, Omar Najmi, Maggie Finnegan, Chantelle Grant, Sarah Johnson, and more.
“’The Tempest’ has always been a play about a man who cannot stop directing,” says Artistic Director Stefanos Koroneos in a press release. “Prospero conjures, manipulates, and stages every encounter on his island — and it is that compulsion, that need to control the story, that ultimately destroys him from within. In this production, I place Prospero inside a crumbling 1980s film studio, where the island is not a place but a memory: a warped rehearsal hall built from plastic, vinyl, and artificial light, where desire erodes identity, gender is fluid and performed, and the line between creator and creation collapses entirely. The former audience risers become unstable terrain — a ruinous mountain where characters claw, fall, and reach for power, love, and freedom under the cold eye of a camera boom. As the island slowly fills with synthetic jungle — inflatable tropicals, neon flora, plastic vines — the illusion does not become more beautiful. It becomes more desperate. This is a ‘Tempest’ about what artists do to the people they love, and what it costs to finally put down the pen, break the staff, and let the story end without you.”
Held at La MaMa in New York City, the work will be sung in English. Tickets and further detail can be found on Teatro Grattacielo’s website.