Ed. Note: This is a guest post from a close friend of Peekskill Rocks, Dee Volz. The review was written over the summer but was then lost in transmission. We are extremely happy to finally be posting it and hope you enjoy it too.

Who would believe (unless I told you) what an exciting interpretation of “Othello,” in modern dress and appropriate readings of the timeless lines, is presented by the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, a rough half hour drive from Peekskill, at Boscobel on a magnificent estate with a view of the Hudson and surrounding hills? (Near Cold Spring.) Someone with an original insight and fine staging sense has set it in the great white tent that sits on the lawn at Boscobel, cut open on the side to that view. From the moment you hear distant music and see the approach of a group of soldiers in the current style of fatigues, with many women among them, (contemporary touch) to dramatic drum music, you know you are in for a drama all the more exciting because the participants are young and beautiful, and the style contemporary. Recently, as those soldiers approached to the warlike music, I experienced the thrill that only drama can give. “The play’s the thing!” I thought. Perhaps the fabulous stagecraft and mystique is due to the new artistic director, Davis McCallum. I was curious about whose touch did so much magic.
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