Shakespeare Society to Honor Richard Easton & Hamish Linklater at Playing Shakespeare Celebration, 6/9

On June 9 from 6-8 pm, The Shakespeare Society will host their second annual Playing Shakespeare Celebration at The Century Club (7 West 43rd Street). The Shakespeare Medal will be presented to Richard Easton, and The Linda Gross Playing Shakespeare Award will be presented to Hamish Linklater.

The Shakespeare Medal is awarded in recognition of extraordinary contribution to the appreciation of the Bard. Previous recipients include Professor Harold Bloom, Claire Bloom, Sir Derek Jacobi, Sir Peter Hall, Christopher Plummer, Michael Kahn, and Kenneth Branagh.

The Linda Gross Playing Shakespeare Award is in recognition of Linda Gross, and her enduring commitment to the theater, to actors, and to Shakespeare in performance. It is given to promising young actors just beginning their careers playing Shakespeare, to encourage them to become honest guardians of Shakespeare's plays. Last year's inaugural Playing Shakespeare Award was given to Jacob Fishel.

Special guests will include Blair Brown, Michael Cerveris, Kathleen Chalfant, Jacob Fishel, Jack O'Brien, Kellie Overbey, Martha Plimpton, Lily Rabe, Jay O. Sanders, and more for cocktails, canapés, an auction, and awards. The online auction accompanying the event will conclude at the event.

TICKETS are $100 ($61 tax-deductible) and can be purchased online at http://shakespearesociety.org/events.html or by calling (212) 967-6802. For additional information, contact mpalmour@shakespearesociety.org or (212) 967-6802.

Easton has appeared in 76 Shakespeare productions of 26 of Shakespeare's plays and was named one of Theater World's Promising Personalities of 1957-58, and in 2008 he was inducted into the Broadway Hall of Fame. Broadway: The Invention of Love (Tony Award, Best Actor), Back to Methusela (Tyrone Power), The Country Wife (Julie Harris), School for Scandal (John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson), Noises Off, Henry IV (Kevin Kline), Macbeth, The Rivals, The Coast of Utopia, and Elling. Off-Broadway: New Jerusalem, Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Bach at Leipzig, Echoes of the War, Observe the Sons of Ulster, Hotel Universe, Waste, Give Me Your Answer, Do! and Salad Days. Lots of Shakespeare at all three Stratford Festivals, The Old Globe in San Diego, APA at the Lyceum, and elsewhere. TV: 6 years on The Brothers (BBC), A Month in the Country, The Admirable Crichton; Enemy of the People, Mildred Pierce, Boardwalk Empire, and the title role in the Emmy winning Ben Franklin. Film: Henry V, Dead Again, Finding Forrester, Revolutionary Road.

Linklater is currently starring in The Public Theater's Much Ado About Nothing (Benedick) at the Delacorte Theater. His credits for The Public Theater include The Comedy of Errors, for which he received a Drama Desk nomination; The Merchant of Venice; The Winter's Tale; Twelfth Night, for which he received a Drama Desk nomination; Hamlet; The Square; and Love's Fire. He has been seen on Broadway in Seminar, and his additional Off-Broadway credits include the The Vandal at the Flea Theater, which Linklater wrote; The School for Lies, earning him an Obie Award and Lortel and Outer Critics Circle nominations; The Busy World Is Hushed, earning him a Drama League nomination; Recent Tragic Events; and Good Thing. His film and television credits include 42, The Angriest Man in Brooklyn, Lola Versus, Battleship, The Future, Groove, Fantastic Four, Woody Allen's upcoming Magic in the Moonlight, "The Crazy Ones" opposite Robin Williams, "The Good Wife," "The Newsroom," "The Big C," and "The New Adventures of Old Christine."