Sweet Prince is an hour-long theatrical adaptation of Shakespeare's Hamlet. Performances on February 21, 22 and 23, 2025 will mark the culmination of Junkyard Shakespeare's weeklong artist residency hosted by A.P.E. at the Northampton Center for the Arts (33 Hawley St). This production is the current iteration of my 7-year journey studying and playing the Dane; this time, I use Shakespeare's words to investigate themes of apathy, passiveness, death, community and liminal space between actor and audience, bystander and participant.

For this show, I'm performing Hamlet in a way I've never seen done before. It's an experiment - one I cannot do on my own. Shakespeare is meant to be heard, in an action of exchange, from actor to audience and back again. It is beautiful and messy. It looks different every night. When I speak Shakespeare, I access the outer expanses of my emotional being. It is the thing I love most deeply in the world - and sharing it with an audience gives my life purpose. I hope when you leave a performance of Sweet Prince you find yourself considering areas of your life where you might feel a desire to take more action, or live with more purpose.

To be or not to be...in it. Will you join me?

The first way to participate is to become a contributor to this campaign. (Like what I did there?)

The total budget for this show is $7,250. Last year, thanks to a community of committed Junkyard supporters, we raised $3,000 during a Spring fundraiser - enough to cover the amount we need to move into the Workroom at 33 Hawley St. for a week.

To build in a bit of a cushion, I'm launching this crowdfunding campaign to raise an additional $5,000.

I absolutely revel in putting on shows that require no set - and usually no additional lighting or sound - because the result is mesmerizing. And because very little money is allocated to "spectacle," I can pay myself and my team at a professional rate for our professional work.

So our total budget looks like this:

Residency/Rental: $2,500 (paid for by the Spring 2024 Fundraiser)
Personnel: $4,500
Marketing/Fees: $250
TOTAL: $7,250

This crowdfunding campaign ends on February 15 - just in time for us to gather our things and move into the Workroom.

Still debating whether to be or not to be? Let's meet first.

Hilary Dennis (HAMLET) is a conservatory-trained actor and producer based in NYC and Northampton, MA. Past theatre credits include Hamlet (New York Circus Project), 750% (The Secret Theatre), Timeshare (IHRAF), As You Like It (Junkyard Shakespeare), Misconceptions (Blessed Unrest), Hamlet (La MaMa ETC), The Winter's Tale (Rude Grooms), Macbeth (The Workroom), and numerous productions with Elsewhere Shakespeare. Last year, she founded Junkyard Shakespeare, "unprocessed theatre" that prioritizes paying actors a living wage. Before pursuing acting professionally, she was an organic farmer. She holds a BA in Environmental Studies and Spanish from NYU. www.hilarygdennis.com and instagram: @hilarygdennis @junkyardshakespeare

Costanza Bugiani (Co-producer, Stage Manager) is an Italian theatre-maker who moved to the U.S. four years ago. She co-founded Teatro del Mantice acting company based in Florence. She co-produced Hamlet, a crowdfunded project (La Mama Experimental Theatre Club, NYC, August 2022). She worked as Covid Safety manager for multiple productions and theaters during the Covid era (Paper Mill Playhouse, 2022), worked as a temporary intern at The Tank (2023), attended the Summer Intensive Program at Atlantic Acting School (2024), and worked as associate producer for In Scena! Italian Theater Festival in New York (2024). She currently works as social media manager for The International Human Rights Art Movement and as assistant producer of their performing arts festival (IHRAF Festival). instagram: @costanzabug @ihrartmovement

Founded in 2023 by Hilary Dennis, Junkyard Shakespeare is a small Shakespeare theatre project devoted to paying actors a living wage, producing bare-bones productions that prioritize human connection, and building trust and nurturing impulse among collaborators without a director. Past productions include an immersive, backyard As You Like It. Primordial productions (in the Junkyard style before Junkyard was a thing) include Macbeth (The Workroom) and Hamlet (La MaMa ETC). www.hilarygdennis.com/junkyardshakespeare

If you are moved to contribute to Sweet Prince, please drop us a few kroner via the prompts on the next page. If each person we know contributes $30, well, we might just be able to take this thing on the road.

Costanza and I are thrilled to bring this experimental production to life (and then, *spoiler,* death). Thank you for being part of the team that gets us there. We promise to keep you on your toes.