Production blends Shakespeare with Lincoln and Booth

Abraham Lincoln, his killer John Wilkes Booth, and Shakespeare converge in the Rivertowns Playhouse’s new production, “Acting Shakespeare Inside America’s Wilderness.” All performances are free.

The show, created by Irvington native Kamran Saliani, is an adaptation of a play created and first staged in 1980 by actor Ian McKellen. The original “Acting Shakespeare” was a personal exploration of Shakespeare’s material by McKellen, who is British, and Shakespeare’s history and connection to England.

In 2021, Saliani came across a grainy video on YouTube of a 1982 PBS broadcast of “Acting Shakespeare” that inspired him to reach out to his former professor at NYU Tisch School of the Arts to learn more about the production. A chain of messages led Saliani to receive a letter from McKellen five months later.