Audiences can expect to see fewer works by the sage from Stratford-upon-Avon, though Carleton says the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival will continue to justify its name by staging one or two of the Bard's plays each season.
"I'd like a third of our season to be Shakespeare," he says. "I'd like a third to be other classics - works by Chekhov, or the Greeks, or maybe Tennessee Williams." (This fall, the troupe will stage a new production of Dracula.)
Carleton says the final third of each season will be dedicated to new works such as Wittenberg that were inspired by the classics.
FOR THE RECORD - A photo caption in Tuesday's editions misspelled the name of Michael Feldsher, who plays the role of Hamlet in the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival production of Wittenberg.
The Baltimore Sun regrets the error.
"I don't want to do only Shakespeare," Carleton says. "I want to do what Shakespeare did. In 1598, he was a new playwright. He wrote stories based on classical plots and themes that he stole from existing works."
Partly, Carleton's reasons are pragmatic. It's not easy for a small troupe with a limited budget to pull off creditable productions of the Bard's works. Even when these shows succeed artistically, they're expensive.
"The Shakespeare play with the smallest cast might be Macbeth," Carleton says. "There are only 19 people on stage, instead of 40. Wittenberg, in contrast, has a cast of four."
Carleton has a found a way to increase the rehearsal time for his actors, which should improve the quality of the performances. Even so, he says, "there's not a single Shakespeare festival in the world that performs only Shakespeare."
But he thinks there's a niche in Baltimore's theater world that the festival is ideally situated to fill.
"There are three professional, nonprofit theater companies in Baltimore," he says.
"Center Stage does a mix of things, and Everyman does mostly newer plays, but there aren't any theater companies who focus on solid productions of the classics. I think there's an audience in Baltimore for the kind of work we're trying to do, and I'm excited and happy to be here."
If you go
Wittenberg runs through June 14 at St. Mary's Outreach Center, 3900 Roland Ave. Show times are 8 p.m. Thursdays through Saturdays, 5 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $25. Call 410-366-8596 or go to baltimoreshakespeare.org.
