HENRY VI: A TRILOGY IN TWO PARTS

National Asian American Theatre Company (NAATCO)
at the Public Theater

at the Newman Theater
June 9 - July 19, 2026
Scenic Design by dots
Costumes by threeASFOUR
Lighting by Mextly Couzin
Sound by Kate Marvin
Movement & Combat Orlando Pabotoy and Kimiye Corwin
Stage Managed by Vicki Whooper

Photography by Hanjie Chow

“And what can three plays written in the late 1500s about a rather ineffectual English monarch, who reigned in the late 1400s, possibly have to offer a contemporary and complex audience? Well, quite a bit, judging from the sumptuous, precise, bloody, moving, expertly spoken, and deeply engrossing production of Henry VI: A Trilogy in Two Parts, currently onstage at The Public Theater.”

HanJie Chow, Stage and Cinema

“Brown-Fried's adaptation is an act of scholarship disguised as exhilarating theater. Compressing three plays into two evenings—roughly five and a half hours in total—might sound like an exercise in compromise, but it instead becomes an exercise in revelation. Rather than reducing Shakespeare's immense chronicle, Brown-Fried uncovers its essential architecture. What emerges is not a dutiful history lesson but a relentless saga of national collapse, charting the transformation of England from victorious empire to fractured state with astonishing clarity and mounting dramatic momentum. The result feels less like an abbreviated Shakespeare than a newly discovered masterpiece, one whose rhythms and emotional trajectory possess remarkable inevitability.”

Tony Marinelli, Theatre Beyond Broadway

“And where the production shines most is in foregrounding Shakespeare’s text. There’s no inherent apology for talking this much here. The language is embraced, clear, nuanced, and full—we get practically every rushing thought, wit, and logical argument in the writing. This cast is living the words, not just speaking them.”

HanJie Chow, Stage and Cinema