Tina Packer and Nigel Gore sit in a booth in a Boulder restaurant discussing “Women of Will.” Packer’s five-play cycle about William Shakespeare’s female characters begins a run at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on Thursday.
Their conversation illuminates the British actress-turned-American-theater dynamo’s journey from artistic director and founder of the highly regarded Shakespeare & Company, in Lenox, Mass., back to acting in a work of remarkable breadth and depth.
But the pair’s banter also gives a tantalizing hint of their onstage chemistry soon to be on display in Boulder.
“Women of Will” mixes a sort of captivating lecture with vivid, vigorous acting to produce an erudite yet entertaining artistic history.