Donmar's JULIUS CAESAR, LA DIVINA CARICATURA World Premiere and More Set for St. Ann's Warehouse 2013-14 Season

St. Ann's Warehouse has announced programming highlights of its 2013-14 season, which will kick off in October with the American Premiere of the Donmar Warehouse's tremendously acclaimed all-female production of Julius Caesar.

The season finds St. Ann's Warehouse forging several significant new relationships, beginning with the Donmar, which, like St. Ann's, is celebrated for major, cutting-edge theatrical productions. In the Donmar's Julius Caesar (October 3 - November 3), directed by Phyllida Lloyd, the members of an all-female cast give explosive performances in this groundbreaking production. An ensemble of actors including Harriet Walter as Brutus, Frances Barber as Caesar, Jenny Jules as Cassius and Cush Jumbo as Mark Antony, play prisoners and guards performing Shakespeare's great tragedy. In its World Premiere at the Donmar, this Julius Caesar was one of the hits of London's most recent theater season.

Daniel Kitson, who gave unforgettable, sold-out performances in the American Premieres of his (Edinburgh hit) solo "story shows," The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church (2011) and It's Always Right Now, Until It's Later (2012), returns to St. Ann's Warehouse with the World Premiere of his newest work November 26 - December 21.

Having premiered Lee Breuer's radical, internationally celebrated reimagining of Ibsen, Mabou Mines DollHouse, St. Ann's Warehouse and LaMaMa will co-present the World Premiere of Breuer's La Divina Caricatura, produced by piece by piece productions, Mabou Mines andDovetail Productions, December 6 - 22 at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre. Breuer wrote and directs the work, which is nearly 40 years in the making. La Divina Caricatura is a mixed-media pop-opera for Bunraku puppets, with live music composed by Lincoln Schleifer that ranges from Motown to Broadway and reggae to raga. The story concerns a dog that thinks she's a woman and fantasizes a mad love affair with her master, John, an East Village junkie. Hilton Als of The New Yorker describes the work as "Bunraku puppets meets soul music meets Breuer's imagination."

St. Ann's Warehouse welcomes back director Daniel Kramer for the American Premiere of his staging of Bartók's only opera, Bluebeard's Castle (February 28 - March 15, 2014), in a co-production with New York City Opera. As he did in his stirring production of Woyzeck, which St. Ann's premiered in 2006, Kramer offers a brutally dark vision (all too topical), full of shocking surprises. In this production, originated byEnglish National Opera, New York City Opera's new Music Director, Jayce Ogren, will conduct the Company's orchestra, and St. Ann's Warehouse will stand in for Bluebeard's haunted castle.

The Tricycle Theatre production of Lolita Chakrabarti's heartbreaking drama Red Velvet-directed by Indhu Rubasingham, in her inaugural season as the Tricycle Theatre's Artistic Director-makes its American Premiere at St. Ann's Warehouse March 25 - April 20, 2014. Appearing in New York for the first time in over a decade, Adrian Lester gives an intensely moving performance as Ira Aldridge, a black American actor who was tapped to become the first black Othello at Covent Garden in 1833. The award-winning script has been imagined by Chakrabarti, based on Aldridge's life story.

Of the upcoming season, St. Ann's Artistic Director Susan Feldman said, "Each year we look at a blank canvas, and then, lo and behold, these amazing colors appear. This season is full of passion, longing and heartache, deliciously rendered by some of the world's greatest artists past and present."

St. Ann's Warehouse Memberships are currently on sale. In addition to early access to tickets, Members benefit from exclusive discounts, waived service fees, and ticket exchange privileges. Beginning at $50 and completely tax-deductible, Memberships are available now at www.stannswarehouse.org or by calling the St. Ann's Warehouse Box Office at 718.254.8779 (Tuesday-Saturday, 1-7PM). Tickets will go on sale to Members in the coming weeks; Bluebeard's Castle is already available to St. Ann's Members and New York City Opera subscribers.

Additional 2013-14 productions will be announced soon.

ST. ANN'S WAREHOUSE 2013-2014 HIGHLIGHTS:

Donmar Warehouse and St. Ann's Warehouse present
Donmar's
Julius Caesar
By William Shakespeare
Directed by Phyllida Lloyd
American Premiere

October 3 - November 3

Tickets start at $45

In the hard, grim surroundings of a women's prison, the all-female actors in Phyllida Lloyd's bold production of Julius Caesar play inmates and guards performing an explosive, arresting production of Shakespeare's most famous discourse on power, loyalty, and tragic idealism. While all-male productions of Shakespeare's plays restaged in contemporary settings are common, in the hands of this cast, led by Harriet Walter as Brutus, Frances Barber as Caesar, Jenny Jules as Cassius and Cush Jumbo as Mark Antony, Shakespeare's themes are glaringly and touchingly heightened by the backdrop of female incarceration, a live thrash metal band, and the emotional nuances inherent to women playing men at their most vulnerable.

Originally produced at London's Donmar Warehouse, under the leadership of Josie Rourke (Artistic Director) and Kate Pakenham (Executive Producer), Julius Caesar is a perfect fit for St Ann's raw, versatile space, creating the world of the women's prison just as it did in the intimacy of the Donmar. The show received four-star reviews from The Times, The Guardian, The Independent, The Financial Times, The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard and others. The New York Times called it "electrifying" and The Observer named it "one of the most important theatrical events of the year."

St. Ann's Warehouse presents
Daniel Kitson
[Title TBA]
World Premiere

November 26 - December 21

Tickets start at $25

Daniel Kitson's "story shows," The Interminable Suicide of Gregory Church (2011) and It's Always Right Now, Until It's Later (2012) are among the most beloved productions in recent St. Ann's Warehouse history. Reviewing Kitson for The New York Times, Ben Brantley called him a "monologuist extraordinaire - unconditionally engaged and engaging," and "consistently and enthrallingly surprising." Scott Brown, in New York Magazine, recently wrote, "[Kitson] is one of the brighter stars in the theater firmament right now and not to be missed."

This time Kitson returns with the World Premiere of his newest yarn.

St. Ann's Warehouse and La MaMa Present
Lee Breuer's La Divina Caricatura Part 1, The Shaggy Dog
Music by Lincoln Schleifer
Puppetry by Jessica Scott
Video by Eamonn Farrell
World Premiere
Produced by piece by piece productions, Mabou Mines and Dovetail Productions

December 6 - 22
At La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre (74 E. 4th Street, NYC)

Tickets $40

This production is not recommended for children under the age of 14.

Co-presenters St. Ann's Warehouse and La MaMa, and producers piece by piece productions, Mabou Mines and Dovetail Productions-all ardent and longtime supporters of "bad boy of avant-garde theater" (Village Voice) -unite for the World Premiere of Breuer's epic magnum opus La Divina Caricatura. The mixed-media pop-opera completes Breuer's Animations series and draws on material that stretches all the way back to Breuer's doo-wop opera Sister Suzie Cinema, first conceived as a poem in 1975.

At the center of La Divina Caricatura is an unlikely lead character: a dog named Rose, who is making a Dantean pilgrimage to love and, hopefully, Paradiso.

Lincoln Schleifer's music and arrangements-for lead singer Bernardine Mitchell as Rose the dog, a live band; a quartet of male soul singers (J.D. Steele, Ben Odom, Gene Stewart and Fred Steele); a trio of female backup singers (Maxine Brown, Beverly Crosby and Sherryl Marshall); and members of the cast-incorporates the work of Bob Telson and John Margolis and covers a stunning array of styles, from 1950s doo-wop and 1960s soul to Argentinian tango, raga, reggae, rap, Gregorian chant and French folk tunes.

The cast, joining a massive ensemble of Bunraku puppeteers, features actors John Margolis (John), Ruth Maleczech, Maude Mitchell and GregMehrten.

Since he first saw the Osaka Bunraku in Paris in 1968, Breuer has wanted to introduce an Americanized, deconstructed version of the elaborate musical puppet theater to Western audiences. The puppets in La Divina Caricatura are by some of the country's best designers: Julie Archer, Jessica Scott, Eric Novak and Emily DeCola. (Basil Twist's Warrior Ant appears in Parts II and III.)

La Divina Caricatura draws upon previous Breuer / Mabou Mines works including the original Shaggy Dog Animation, Sister Susie Cinema, Prelude to Death in Venice, An Epidog, Summa Drammatica, Porco Morto, Ecco Porco and The Warrior Ant. There are echoes of still other Breuer creations, from The Gospel at Colonus to Mabou Mines Dollhouse, which St. Ann's Warehouse premiered and launched onto a world tour that continues to this day.

The Brooklyn Rail has said, "The staging of La Divina Caricatura closely reflects the traditional performance of Bunraku puppetry. However, Divina is directed as an animated, epic movie, based on the narrative structure of Monzaemon's Bunraku plays, which in turn closely mirror the structure of feature films."

La Divina Caricatura is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

St. Ann's Warehouse and New York City Opera present
Bluebeard's Castle
Composed by Béla Bartók
Libretto by Béla Balázs
Conducted by Jayce Ogren
Directed by Daniel Kramer

February 28 - March 15, 2014

Presented in collaboration with English National Opera

Tickets $25 - $235

Bluebeard's Castle is sung in Hungarian with English subtitles.
This production contains strong adult themes and violence. Recommended for audiences aged 16+.

The legend of Bluebeard's Castle has never been more ravaging or ravishing than in the hands of provocative director Daniel Kramer, known to St. Ann's Warehouse audiences for his staggeringly inventive production of Woyzeck. In Béla Bartók's only opera, Judith, passionately, obsessively in love with Bluebeard, renounces her rosy past to follow him into the haunting, menacing depths of his castle. When they arrive at seven locked doors, Judith begs and pleads for a glimpse at the secrets lying behind them. All too topical, Kramer's production epitomizes the dark place men can go in their perversity and entitlement in search of satisfying their desires.

The opera, based on Charles Perrault's chilling 1697 fairytale, was written in 1911 and first produced in 1918. St. Ann's Warehouse co-presents this production with New York City Opera, which presented the first fully staged American production of Bluebeard in 1952. New York City Opera's new Music Director, Jayce Ogren, will conduct the Company's orchestra in this site-specific staging at St. Ann's Warehouse, which will stand in for Bluebeard's haunted dungeon.

Bluebeard's Castle is a collaboration between New York City Opera, St. Ann's Warehouse and English National Opera. Reviewing the first presentation of Kramer's staging, by English National Opera at the London Coliseum in 2009, The Telegraph (UK) called it "unforgettable" and wrote that it was "refreshing to encounter a director who has dug deep into the resonances of a masterpiece... an interpretation that will unsettle any idea you may have had as to what this weird fable signifies." A four-star review in The Guardian called it "awfully compelling," and The Observer called it "enthralling."

The first performance of the original production took place at English National Opera on November 6, 2009.

St. Ann's Warehouse presents
The Tricycle Theatre
Red Velvet
By Lolita Chakrabarti
Directed by Indhu Rubasingham
American Premiere

March 25 - April 20, 2014

Tickets start at $40

Theatre Royal, Covent Garden, London, 1833. Edmund Kean, the greatest actor of his generation, has collapsed on stage while playing Othello. Ira Aldridge, a young black American actor, has been asked to take over the role. But as the public riots in the streets over the abolition of the Slavery Act, how will the cast, critics and audience react to the revolution taking place in the theater?

Red Velvet comprises Aldridge's experiences as Lolita Chakrabarti, winner of the Evening Standard Award for Most Promising Playwright, imagines them, based on Aldridge's true story. Indhu Rubasingham, in her inaugural season as the Tricycle Theatre's Artistic Director, directs. Adrian Lester, as Aldridge, gives a mesmerizing, must-see, performance that The Observer, deeming Red Velvet one of the top 10 productions of 2012, called "towering" and of "unwavering magnificence." The Evening Standard described Red Velvet as "powerfully imagined" and praised Lester for a "performance of great depth and soul."

Lester himself has gone on to win praise as Othello in Nicholas Hytner's new staging, currently running at The National Theatre in London.

For over three decades, St. Ann's has commissioned, produced and presented an eclectic body of innovative theater and concert presentations that meet at the intersection of theater and rock and roll. Since 2001, the organization has helped vitalize the emerging Brooklyn waterfront neighborhood, DUMBO, where St. Ann's Warehouse has become one of New York City's most important and compelling live performance destinations. After twelve years at 38 Water Street, St. Ann's has activated a new warehouse at 29 Jay, which will be home for the next three years, while the organization designs and raises funds to adapt the Tobacco Warehouse in Brooklyn Bridge Park into a thriving cultural center.

Through its signature multi-artist concerts and groundbreaking music/theater collaborations, St. Ann's Warehouse has become the artistic home for the American avant-garde, international companies of stature and award-winning emerging artists. Highly acclaimed landmark productions include Lou Reed's and John Cale's Songs for 'Drella; Marianne Faithfull's Seven Deadly Sins; Artistic Director Susan Feldman's Band in Berlin; Charlie Kaufman and the Coen Brothers' Theater of the New Ear; The Royal Court Theater's 4:48 Psychosis; The Globe Theatre of London's Measure for Measure; Druid Company's The Walworth Farce, The New Electric Ballroom and Penelope; Enda Walsh's Misterman,featuring Cillian Murphy; Lou Reed's Berlin; the National Theater of Scotland's acclaimed Black Watch; Kneehigh Theatre's Brief Encounter; Yael Farber's Mies Julie; and Dmitry Krymov Lab's Opus No. 7. St. Ann's has championed such artists as The Wooster Group, Jeff Buckley, Cynthia Hopkins, Enda Walsh, Emma Rice, and Daniel Kitson.

St. Ann's Warehouse has been awarded the Ross Wetzsteon OBIE Award for the development of new work. The OBIE Award Committee honored St. Ann's for "inviting artists to treat their cavernous DUMBO space as both an inspiring laboratory and a sleek venue where its super-informed audience charges the atmosphere with hip vitality."

St. Ann's Warehouse Board of Directors includes Joseph S. Steinberg (Chairman), Susan Feldman (President, Artistic Director), Steven B.Rissman (Vice President), Kay Ellen Consolver (Treasurer), Thomas H. French (Secretary), Ronald E. Feiner, Elizabeth B. Gormley, StephenHendel, Anatoly Lezhen, Janno Lieber, Adam E. Max, Thomas T. Newell, Anthony D. Schlesinger, David Wagner, David C. Walentas and Andrew D. Hamingson (Executive Director).

To post a comment, you must register and login.