Ben Veatch and Jared Dennis Photo by Steven Townshend | Distant Era

The play begins three years out from Shakespeare's death, with Heminges, Condell, and Burbage carrying on to keep the King's Men going, even as they lament the pirated copies and degraded productions of their fallen comrade's works. When Burbage dies unexpectedly, Condell is determined not only to collect, but to publish the plays. The business-minded Heminges is reluctant to sign on to the Herculean project, but yet another bound, pirated, and half-imaginary collection, together with pressure from his own wife and daughter as well as Condell's wife and a passionate scribe, eventually win him over to the project.

Gunderson is clearly writing primarily for the Shakespeare faithful, and well-done in-jokes abound. But to the play's credit (and in the spirit of Shakespeare himself), it also plays for those who are less familiar with the plays, with the man's biography, and with the legends that have attached themselves to the assembly of the First Folio. It's a play that doesn't back down from sentiment, but leans into humor and succeeds in moving the audience, particularly in its final moments.

The scenic design by Trevor Dotson is flexible and well-suited to both the small black box space that PTE has to work with at the Den Theatre and to Gunderson's tendency toward relatively short, intimate scenes that change quickly. Dotson provides a doorway upstage that leads into the pub run by Alice Heminges or the homes of individual characters, as necessary. Stage left of this is a small proscenium fronted by a blue, dip-dyed curtain to suggest the stage at the globe, when closed, and to afford a view into the complex workings of the print shop when drawn back. On the wall at stage right, characters, including a Crier, continually add sheets advertising various plays and companies.

Jackson Mikkelsen's lighting design provides important support to the scenic design, particularly when Gunderson's text calls for rapid intercutting of interactions between pairs of characters. Together with Wolf's subtle direction and smart blocking, Mikkelsen offers equally nuanced shifts in lighting to guide the attention of the audience. Likewise, the sound design by Alex Trinh mot only enlivens dramatic scenes, it also offers music to transform scene transitions into scenes from life, rather than moments of dead air.

Rachel M. Sypniewski's costumes likely deserve the most credit for the success of the production. There are excellent period-appropriate pieces throughout, but Sypniewski is not afraid to blend these with out-of-closet pieces in the service of clarity over fussy historical fidelity; although all the actors, save those playing Heminges and Condell, play multiple roles, Sypniewski adds scarves, head coverings, aprons, and so on to provide quick visual cues, only radically changing an actor's look when absolutely necessary.

The Book of Will is a play that is, of course, likely to resonate productively with any company (or, indeed, any actor) that has managed to remain standing for any period of time. And yet the resonance with this production feels unique not just to this company's take, but to this historical moment when so many of us are questioning so much.

Jared Dennis (Heminges) and Ben Veatch (Condell) establish the foundation for this realization of both Gunderson’s intentions and Wolf's perspective on the show. Together, these two establish a dynamic that feels realistic to the core. Although the audience never doubts their friendship or real affection for one another, the two also capture the very petty, yet very real and meaningful clashes and annoyances that arise in the business of theatre that put sanity, profession, and relationships at risk.

Dennis is especially moving in depicting a man who yearns for (and succeeds on, if only he could realize it) the stage, yet puts his shoulder to the wheel in making practical things go, because someone has to. Veatch, for his part, embodies the all-in, wholly impractical artist who, nonetheless, respects and values not only his much more grounded partner, but also finds his wife's blend of reverence for the art and hard-head business approach to be genuinely arousing.

Brendan Hutt's work is also excellent, both as Burbage, the actor who rendered so many of Shakespeare's roles iconic, and William Jaggard, the unscrupulous publisher who jeopardizes the Folio project at various points and in multiple, nefarious ways. In particular, his mash-up of Shakespeare's greatest roles believably reduces a crew of rival actors to a crying, obsequious mess.

James Lewis is an excellent foil to Hutt's Burbage as Ben Johnson. Lewis is unafraid to let the audience see him as the utterly absurd Johnson, and yet the attentions he directs toward Alice are almost tempting, even in their absurdity. Likewise, he is genuinely moving in the way he weeps when he reads all the plays in the Folio as preparation for the opening remarks he's been asked to offer.

As the King's Men's stage manager, Ed, as well as the more scrupulous partner in the Jaggard Publishing works, Kevin Sheehan is versatile and charming. The same is true of Brittani Yawn's performance as Alice Heminges, and later as Susannah. Yawn's work is a powerful argument for the inclusion of female characters in the script, however "anachronistic" some might find this.

The same is true of the women in the supporting cast. Anne Sheridan Smith, who plays both Rebecca Heminges and Anne Shakespeare, and Sabine Wan, who plays Elizabeth Condell, Emilia Lanier, and others, are both vital to conveying the breadth and depth of Shakespeare's influence. They fill out the play's world and flesh out the characters of these men's wives, rendering them far more than passive supporters of their husbands.

Jonathan Perkins similarly creates a well-rounded character in Ralph Crane, the scribe who comes to be one of the Folio's editors, and Jesús Barajas is well-suited to playing the role of one of Shakespeare's beloved clowns as both the terrible young Hamlet who spurs Heminges and Condell to pursue their project, and as the crier who helps to knit scenes together.

Promethean Theatre Ensemble's The Book of Will runs through October 25, 2025, at the Den Theatre, 1331 N. Milwaukee Ave, Chicago IL. For tickets, please visit www.prometheantheatre.org or call 773-697-3830.