Andy Grotelueschen, Paul L. Coffey & More Set for FIASCO THEATER'S PERICLES

Classic Stage Company and Fiasco Theater have revealed the complete cast for Fiasco Theater’s Pericles. Fiasco Theater’s Pericles will begin performances on Thursday February 8, 2024, with opening night set for Monday February 26. The run will conclude on Sunday March 24, 2024.  Tickets are on sale now at www.classicstage.org.

 

Pericles takes the Prince of Tyre on a Mediterranean adventure full of riddles, betrayals…and pirates! From confident leader to yearning lover to seeker of meaning, our hero in this Shakespearean tragicomedy will be brought to life on the CSC stage by the inventive Fiasco Theater, who have previously delighted New York audiences with inspired interpretations of Cymbeline and Into the Woods. The Fiasco Theater ensemble brings music, poetry, and a completely new way of seeing one of the Bard’s most complex characters.

 

Pericles was written by William Shakespeare and will be directed by Fiasco’s Co-Artistic Director and founder, Ben Steinfeld. The cast of Fiasco Theater’s Pericles will include Jessie Austrian (Fiasco’s Cymbeline & Into the Woods), Noah Brody (Fiasco’s Merrily We Roll Along, CSC’s As You Like It), Paul L. Coffey (“Blue Bloods,” Fiasco’s Cymbeline), Tony Award nominee Andy Grotelueschen (Tootsie, CSC’s Assassins), Devin E. Haqq (Fiasco’s Measure for Measure & Knight of the Burning Pestle), Ben Steinfeld (Fiasco’s Into the Woods, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson), Paco Tolson (Vietgone, Fiasco and CSC’s Twelfth Night), Tatiana Weschler (Mr. Saturday Night, Penelope), and Emily Young (Fiasco’s Cymbeline, Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson).

 

The performance schedule for Fiasco Theater’s Pericles is Tuesdays through Fridays at 7pm, Saturdays at 2pm and 7pm, and Sundays at 2pm. Exceptions: there will be no performance on Sunday, March 17. There will be an added matinee on Wednesday March 13 at 2pm.

 

Masks are now optional, but encouraged for all audience members. CSC will offer mask-mandated performances on Friday, February 16 at 7pm and Saturday, March 2 at 2pm. Patrons are also invited to attend an ASL performance on March 9 at 2pm.

 

CSC memberships are available now, starting at $50, and include guaranteed access to purchase discounted tickets to all CSC productions in the 2023-24 season, including I Can Get It for You Wholesale, featuring music and lyrics by Harold Rome, a book by Jerome Weidman with revisions made by his son, John Weidman, and directed by Trip Cullman, Fiasco Theater’s production of Pericles, written by William Shakespeare and directed by Ben Steinfeld, and Wine in the Wilderness, written by Alice Childress and directed by LaChanze. More information on memberships and tickets is available at classicstage.org/members.

 

ABOUT Classic Stage Company

Classic Stage Company (CSC) challenges the traditional perception of classic work by exploring and reimagining great stories across the world’s repertoire that illuminate our common humanity. As a home for the classics, CSC collaborates with artists to produce work that is inclusive, relevant, and accessible. CSC believes that theater can both reflect and improve society by reaching across cultural divides in order to foster shared empathy and understanding. 

 

In 1967, director Christopher Martin founded CSC Repertory in a 100-seat theater at Rutgers Presbyterian Church on West 73rd Street. Following short stints in small spaces, CSC grew to the point where it needed a permanent home. In 1973, the theater moved to its present premises on 13th Street, an intimate space that was formerly an East Village carriage house.

 

In the 55 years since, CSC has become a leading Off-Broadway theater that is a home for new and established artists, as well as audiences seeking epic stories intimately told. Productions have been cited by all major Off-Broadway theater awards including the Obie, Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, Drama League, and the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Body of Work.

 

ABOUT FIASCO THEATER

 

Fiasco Theater is an ensemble theater company based in NYC. The co-artistic directors of Fiasco met in graduate school during the first years of the Brown/Trinity MFA acting program. They connected through discussing how actor training and collaboration work best; together, they sought to define what makes for the most effective, exciting rehearsal. At Brown, they wore many hats in their collaborations, as actors, directors and writers. After school, they wanted to keep working this way: as an ensemble of artists with a shared vocabulary and love of making great theater through dynamic rehearsal. Fiasco was born out of that desire. They have a non-hierarchical leadership structure with 3 ADs sharing power; their classes and productions often have co-teachers and co-directors, modeling collaboration and multiple perspectives, inviting ensemble members to bring their holistic selves to the conversation.

 

Fiasco produces annual programming in four categories: They are presented by partner theaters. They produce stripped-down, actor-driven productions through their new series Without a Net. They develop new work through year-round readings and workshops (free and open to the public). They conduct education programs, including Master Classes, their Free Training Initiative and their Conservatory program. 

 

Presenting partner theaters in NYC have included Classic Stage Co, TFANA,  New Victory and Roundabout Theatre, where Fiasco serves as the first-ever Company in Residence. The Fiasco Conservatory training program offers emerging artists the chance to train full-time in Fiasco’s joy-based, actor-centered approach to theater-making. Fiasco’s Free Training Initiative offers students a primer in Fiasco’s rehearsal approach completely free of charge to all. Fiasco’s production of Merrily We Roll Along at Roundabout (2019) was nominated for two Drama Desk awards (Best Revival/Best Director) as well as an Off-Broadway Alliance award (Best Revival). Cymbeline was presented Off-Broadway twice, for nearly 200 performances, and was honored with the 2012 Off-Broadway Alliance Award for best revival. Into the Woods garnered the 2015 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Revival and the 2016-17 national tour won the Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Visiting Production and LA Drama Critics Circle Awards for Best Direction and Best Ensemble. Cymbeline, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Measure for Measure and Into the Woods have all been NYT Critic’s Picks. To date, their award-winning work has been seen by over 200,000 audience members in NYC, including over 12,000 school children, and The New York Times has called Fiasco “a force to reckon with in the American theater.” They are currently also in residence with NYU-Gallatin, have been commissioned by The Old Globe and just completed a podcast of Aditi Brennan Kapil’s Measure for Measure in collaboration with Next Chapter Podcasts. Their most recent production was the critically acclaimed The Knight of the Burning Pestle at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, co-produced with Red Bull Theater. Fiasco has been in residence with TFANA, New Vic Labworks, Duke University, Marquette University and LSU. They have developed work with the Sundance Theatre Lab, the Orchard Project, SPACE on Ryder Farm and the Shakespeare Society. Fiasco receives generous support from Howard Gilman Foundation, SHS Foundation, Lucille Lortel Foundation, Actors Equity Foundation, The Harold & Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, New York State Council on the Arts and The Shubert Foundation.

 

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