About Alice

Baltimore City - Highlandtown A&E District
Alice Stanley is a director, playwright, actor, and musician in Baltimore, MD. Alice is the Founding Artistic Producer of Cohesion Theatre Company, a theatre dedicated to collaboration and representing marginalized voices. Alice has directed at Cohesion, Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, Spotlighters, and The Strand Theater; has had pieces produced by Cohesion, Rapid Lemon Productions, Fells Point Corner Theater, and The Interrobang Theater Company. Alice was awarded Best Director from Baltimore… more

Hamlet at Cohesion Theatre Company (Director/Sound Designer)

Hamlet ran at Cohesion Theatre Company March 4-20, 2016. For it, I was interviewed in and featured by The New York Times and USA Today, and awarded Best Director from Baltimore City Paper's 2016 Best of Baltimore. It was set in 1993 Seattle and featured a female Hamlet. 

Review Excerpts:

“Baltimore’s Cohesion Theater is focusing part of its season on works by and starring transgender theater makers. For its ‘Hamlet,’ the director Alice Stanley, who doesn’t identify with any gender, cast a female actress to play a female Hamlet and a female actress to play a male Laertes. There’s nothing new about gender shake-ups in Shakespeare, but for this show the gender-fluid roles were hashed out in collaborative decisions over whether the characters would be male, female or ‘fall somewhere on the transgender spectrum,’ said Brad Norris, a company co-founder.”
-The New York Times

“Cohesion Theatre artistic producer Alice Stanley, who directed the recent Hamlet with a lesbian protagonist, is in her 20s, and has re-interpreted other Shakespeare plays to incorporate transgender characters. ‘People use Shakespeare's work to touch on political issues all the time,’ Stanley says. ‘Gender diversity is at the forefront right now, and there's a lot that can be played with and reimagined.’”
-USA Today

“Only in its second season, Cohesion has made an admirable mark on the local ensemble theater scene with imaginative choices of material and concepts. This ‘Hamlet’ reconfirms ‘what a piece of work’ the company is.”
-The Baltimore Sun

“Director Alice Stanley turns in an astonishing version of this old beast: familiar, alien, unnerving and absolutely fascinating…The dynamics that Stanley plays with are truly odd for the play and tease out strangely exciting sub-texts that were (of course) never intended but feel true even for it.”
-The Bad Oracle

 “But the most sensational portion of Stanley’s vision is not the sound work or overall exceptionally tight pacing but rather the silent vignettes captured between scenes. There are a handful of moments, many of which speak as loudly as the Bard’s finely posed words, carefully inserted into the play that illuminate moments of unwitnessed occurrence for the characters…Stanley has given them a sonorous voice by turning them into almost cinematic motion captures flawlessly woven in-between scenes of action and dialogue.”
-Theatre Bloom

“I have a new favorite production of Hamlet and I saw it right here in Charm City. I’ve seen Hamlet done very well before, but I’ve never seen anything like this…Stanley and Scenic Designer/Production Manager Casey Dutt bring the action and emotion right to the people by using a Traverse-style stage for this show…This intimate configuration puts you up close and personal with what’s happening on stage.”
-DC Metro Theater Arts
  • Hamlet, Claudius, Laertes
    Hamlet, Claudius, Laertes
    Martin Ealey as Claudius, Caitlin Carbone as Hamlet, and Melanie Glickman as Laertes. Photo by Shealyn Jae.
  • Players
    Players
    Casey Dutt, Matt Payne, and Jeff Miller as Players. Photo by Shealyn Jae.
  • Hamlet and Ophelia
    Hamlet and Ophelia
    Caitlin Carbone as Hamlet and Sarah Lamar as Ophelia. Photo by Shealyn Jae.
  • Ophelia
    Ophelia
    Sarah Lamar as Ophelia. Photo by Shealyn Jae.
  • Graphic Design
    Graphic Design
    The poster image for our grunge Hamlet.
  • Concept Art
    Concept Art
    My House Is On Fire by Shirin Neshat
  • Concept Art
    Concept Art
    Fragment by Julie Mehretu
  • Concept Art
    Concept Art
    Kurt Cobain
  • Concept Art
    Concept Art
    Eddie Vetter at the VMAs.

Exit Pluto at Strand Theater (Director)

Exit Pluto by Amy Bernstein is a world premier, running at the Strand Theater January 12-29, 2017. Set in a bakery that is also a fortress, Exit Pluto shows what happens when we resist inevitable change. In directing this project, Alice focused on honest storytelling and meaningful, intimate moments within the heightened reality of the script. Sound and lights were used extensively to move between the main character's imagination, flashbacks, stories, and the real world.
  • Lulu
    Lulu
    Barbara Madison Hauck as Lulu. Photo by Shealyn Jae.
  • Lulu and Blossom
    Lulu and Blossom
    Barbara Madison Hauck as Lulu and Bethany Mayo as Blossom. Photo by Shealyn Jae.
  • Hector and Betty
    Hector and Betty
    Janise Whelan as Betty and Flynn Harne as Hector. Photo by Shealyn Jae.
  • Noushin and Betty
    Noushin and Betty
    Jessica Kim as Noushin and Janise Whelan as Betty. Photo by Shealyn Jae.

Aphorisms on Gender at Cohesion Theatre Company (Playwright)

Aphorisms on Gender is a one-act piece written by Alice Stanley about their experience discovering and revealing their agender identity. It was produced at Cohesion Theatre Company as part of the Trans* Voices Workshop Series April 1-3, 2016. The project was directed by Melanie Glickman and Caitlin Carbone.

Review Excerpts:

"Kudos to Stanley for bringing these questions to the fore and to Cohesion Theatre Company and Iron Crow Theatre's commitment to new work that is a catalyst for the exchange of ideas and an instigator for social change."
DC Metro Theater Arts

"A remarkably smart and insightful piece, Stanley's work sheds light on a great deal of subjects relating to gender identification and speaks to audiences of all genders in a fluid and openly honest voice."
Theatre Bloom

"I left feeling that Cohesion is doing right for this underrepresented community."
The Bad Oracle

  • Nora and Max
    Nora and Max
    Logan Davidson as Nora and Fred Fletcher-Jackson as Max.
  • Aphorisms Opening Poem
    Aphorisms Opening Poem
    Penny Nichols as molly, Rich Espey as Peter, Erica Burns as Jane, and Fred Fletcher-Jackson as Max.
  • Christmas Dinner
    Christmas Dinner
    Rich Espey as Peter, Penny Nichols as Molly, Logan Davidson as Nora, and Zach Bopst as Cole.
  • Poster Design
    Poster Design
    Poster design for Aphorisms on Gender.