The Colorado Shakespeare Festival is back on Sunday, and for the famed Boulder company’s 67th season, all eyes will be on Ellen McLaughlin, Kevin Rich … and the skies. Or make that “roof.”

McLaughlin is the lauded, internationally acclaimed actor who two years ago came to Boulder to play King Lear. She is returning this summer to play Prospera (with an a) in Shakespeare’s supremely stormy “The Tempest.” (In 1991, she became the first actor ever to play the titular angel in “Angels in America.”) 

Rich is a beloved longtime company member who has never had more to do than he does in 2025: He’s not only directing “The Tempest,” he is starring in “Richard II” and, on July 1, he begins in his newly promoted role as chairman of the department of theater and dance at the University of Colorado Boulder, which has partnered with the nation’s second-oldest Shakespeare Festival since 1958.

Last year, the Colorado Shakespeare Festival began the most fraught two-year period of its 58-year existence – overdue renovations in and around the storied, 1,000-seat Mary Rippon Amphitheatre on the CU Boulder campus are forcing the festival to perform for a second season in the university’s adjacent indoor theater.

That means not only are audiences being temporarily denied the quintessential Colorado experience of Shakespeare under the Boulder stars – but Producing Artistic Director Timothy Orr says the company hit all of its modest sales goals for last year and is on track to do the same in 2025. The good news is the renovations are on schedule and everything is looking good for the company to finally return to the outdoors in 2026.

That leaves “The Tempest” and “Richard II” for audiences to chew on indoors this summer – two contrasting ruminations on power – and how we wield it – as played out by McLaughlin and Rich.

Something tells me audiences won’t have to work too hard to see the contemporary relevance.

In “The Tempest,” Prospera is both an exiled duchess and a sorcerer who summons a storm to take vengeance on her betrayers. “Richard II” tells us the origin of the “War of the Roses,” when the corrupt, titled and entitled king Ricky faces off with the banished Bolingbroke, setting the stage for 32 years of civil war.

Also on the slate are two already sold-out performances of Christopher Marlowe’s “Doctor Faustus” performed by the throwback “Original Practices” method. That means there is no (official) director, and the actors only learn their own lines. (They’re supposed to stay clear from the rest of the script.

The festival, which runs through Aug. 10, will again feature “double-header Sundays,” when patrons can see the two indoor titles on the same day.

 Most evening shows begin at 7 p.m., because who needs to wait for a sunset when you are indoors?

 Tickets are available online and at the CU Presents Box Office on weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Or call 303-492-8008. Because of the reduced season and smaller indoor theater, ticket availability will be limited all summer.