Brooklyn's Brave New World Theatre Brings 'THE TEMPEST' To The 'Beach' 9/26 & 9/27

Brooklyn's Brave New World Repertory Theatre is bringing the Bard to the Boardwalk in September with two open air performances of The Tempest by William Shakespeare to be staged on the Coney Island beachfront. Two thousand folding chairs will be provided FREE of charge for audience members on the section of boardwalk adjacent to the Aquarium Education building at 10th Street, which the New York Aquarium is donating for the actors' dressing rooms.

The production will feature over a dozen of the professional actors who make up Brave New World Repertory Company-as well as 30 8th grade dance students from Mark Twain Intermediate School for the Gifted and Talented, located in Coney Island.

Says Director Claire Beckman, "Mystery, magic, nature and history exist both in Coney Island and in Shakespeare's last play, which also explores American themes of colonialism, slavery and freedom. Prospero's line, ‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on' sums up the closing of Astroland, which has been hard on the Coney Island community. Putting on a production of The Tempest here on the Boardwalk seemed an appropriate way to give something back that's both meaningful and entertaining."

"Brooklyn is indeed the creative capital in New York City and, I believe, America," says Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz. "As one who would indeed 'give a thousand furlongs of tropical beach for an acre of Coney Island,' I say 'Bravo!' to Brave New World for bringing the Bard to the Boardwalk and matching the fabled lore of Coney with classic theater newly wrought! Merrily, merrily, shall they live now."

The local 8th grade dance students, working with BNW's choreographer Sheila Anozier, will play seagulls in the production and wear commedia-del-arte-style bird masks designed by BNW's costume designer Meganne George and constructed by 8th grade art students also from Mark Twain Intermediate School. Greg Mitchell's scenic design will enhance the site-specific setting with sails and rigging, ropes and flags. Milica Paranosic's composition and Sheila Anozier's choreography will suggest a Caribbean setting and Zach Williamson's sound design will create a turbulent tempest of roaring thunder, seagulls cries and crashing waves. Beckman explains, "A shipwreck off Bermuda's coast exactly 400 years ago, in the summer of 1609, inspired The Tempest, arguably Shakespeare's American play."

Based in Brooklyn, Brave New World Repertory began its path of bold, critically acclaimed site-specific productions in 2005 with its cutting edge production of To Kill a Mockingbird, staged on the Victorian front porches of a tree-lined Ditmas Park street. Since then, they have staged Fahrenheit 451, The Great White Hope and Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, based on Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass all for Celebrate Brooklyn at the Prospect Park band shell, and most recently On The Waterfront by Budd Schulberg, on the Waterfront Museum Barge in Red Hook, and on tour to Pier 84 in Manhattan and Hoboken.

Brave New World Repertory Theatre draws from Brooklyn's rich artistic community to create dynamic and engaging theatre on the Brooklyn side of the bridge. Founded by a group of local theatre professionals, the company produces classic neglected works, as well as new works by its members. Brave New World Repertory Theatre provides its actors, directors, designers, playwrights and stage managers the opportunity to work in and for their own community. For more info visit, www.bravenewworldrep.org