Bad Quarto Productions, a theatre company specializing in performing modern theatre using Shakespearean staging techniques, will stage The Life and Death of Jack Straw, an anonymous play written in the early years of Shakespeares debut in the Elizabethan theatre scene. First printed in 1594, The Life and Death of Jack Straw explores the perils of progressive politics and weak leadership in an eerily modern world of families, both working class and royal, trying their best to survive in uncertain times.
Directed by Bad Quarto Productions Artistic Director Tony Tambasco, The Life and Death of
Jack Straw is the story of parental love turned into a political crusade brought to life by Bad Quarto Productions signature style of combining modern text work with Shakespeares staging conditions. Our performance combines Elizabethan language with the liveliness of improv to deliver productions of Shakespearean plays as intensely raw as their original stagings.
The Life and Death of
Jack Straw will play at Studios 353 (353 W. 48th St., New York) from November 5th through November 13thon the following days and times:
Saturday, November 5th: 8 PM
Sunday, November 6th: 8 PM
Friday, November 11th: 8 PM
Saturday. November 12th: 8 PM
Sunday, November 13th: 2 PM
The house opens 20 minutes before curtain times, and The Life and Death of
Jack Straw has an approximately 70 minute running time. Come early and enjoy live music performed by the cast.
For tickets and more information, please visit us online at
http://www.BadQuarto.org. Questions may be directed to
info@badquarto.org, or by calling Bad Quarto's box office at
(646) 598-2128 between 10 AM and 6 PM.
Of The Life and Death of
Jack Straw, Tambasco says its a play written in the 1590s about a rebellion in the 1380s that is frighteningly familiar. Unchecked populism leads to racism and bigotry, and even the noblest of political aims gets subsumed in the most deplorable depravity.
Jack Straw is both a Shakespearean warning to those who want to change the world, and a reminder that we can still learn a lot from the Elizabethans.
About Bad Quarto Productions: Bad Quarto Productions was founded in 2010 to explore the rarely performed plays of Shakespeare's time, and the ways in which Shakespeare's staging techniques can inform modern theatrical productions. The company has produced the earliest printed version of Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of a Shrew (a shrew not the shrew); the first performance of The Merry Devil of Edmonton in the modern era; and The Ballad of Dido, an original musical developed using Shakespearean techniques. Bad Quarto's performance style has found favor with audiences wherever we've played, and we continue to look for new ways of bridging the gap between Shakespeare's theatre and our own.
