Four Women on A Two Woman Hamlet: An Interview with Marina Cusí, Deanna Strasse, and Sharmila Peake

A Two Woman Hamlet was originally conceived by Mara Sherman, with actors Nicola Collett and Hannah Sweet, for the Capital Fringe Festival in Washington, DC in 2018. Sherman made the script, an archival video of a 2021 Edinburgh Fringe performance, and extensive notes on the rehearsal and development process available through New Play Exchange in 2024. Nora J. Williams directed a fresh production in 2025, produced by the Lakeside Theatre’s Homegrown initiative in Colchester (UK), which supports creative work by staff, students, and alumni of the University of Essex. After a year of working together on the show, Williams sat down with movement director Marina Cusí and actors Deanna Strasse and Sharmila Peake to discuss the process of rehearsing a two-person show with twenty-four characters, the weight of Hamlet in the popular imagination, and what makes a production feminist.