New York Shakespeare Exchange Announces the Next ShakesBEER

New York Shakespeare Exchange announces the next ShakesBEER, NYC's original Shakespearean Pub Crawl, running Saturdays from September 15 - 29, 2018 at 3pm. The pub crawl begins at Jasper's Taphouse (761 9th Avenue, NYC) at 2:30pm and moves to The Gaf (401 W 48th Street, NYC), Perdition (692 10th Avenue, NYC), and The Waylon (736 10th Avenue, NYC). Check-in is at 2:30pm at Jasper's Taphouse. Tickets are $49 and are available at www.ShakespeareExchange.org. Tickets include performance and four drinks (beer, wine, and select cocktails).

It's impossible to have just one! NY Shakespeare Exchange returns to Hell's Kitchen to serve up a fresh, new round of ShakesBEER, NYC's Original Shakespearean Pub Crawls, in September.

This special fall edition takes on the 2018 Midterm Elections, in ShakesBEER's irreverent and fearless style, featuring pieces from Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus, and mixing in scenes from Fuente Ovejuna by Lope De Vega and A Man for All Seasons by Robert Bolt, directed by Ross Williams, Cristina Lundy, and Brian Demar Jones.

"NY Shakespeare Exchange is all about bringing people together," said Ross Williams, artistic director. "When Shakespeare was writing, live theater was a cultural event for every part of his society. Why should it be any different today? We want our audiences to feel like they have been through something visceral and experiential. ShakesBEER is the perfect vessel for that."

Produced by NY Shakespeare Exchange (NYSX), a company that inspires conversation and builds communal experiences through the work of William Shakespeare, the ShakesBEER Pub Crawls treat audiences to an immersive dipso-literary experience that harks back to Elizabethan times. But it is the ability of the Bard's timeless poetry to shed light on contemporary issues that NYSX is most eager to share.

Launching at Jasper's NYC, 761 Ninth Avenue, the "ShakesBEER" crawl will hit four bars in the course of an afternoon (the others are The Gaf, The Waylon, and Perdition). At each of these establishments, the NYSX ensemble rises from the crowd to perform their scene.

New York Shakespeare Exchange is internationally known for its The Sonnet Project (in which more than 1,500 volunteer filmmakers from around the world have joined the discussion by creating short films in New York locations based on all 154 Shakespeare sonnets). NYSX produces at least one mainstage production a year. In 2016, NYSX produced "Hamlet10," in which 10 actors played the Danish Prince, and a stunningly relevant period-adaptation of Shakespeare's epic poem, "The Rape of Lucrece," which delved into sexual violence against women. This past season NYSX staged a critically acclaimed, smart phone-obsessed "Much Ado About Nothing," which plugged into the zeitgeist of fake news and alternative facts.

In the coming months, NY Shakespeare Exchange will offer a number of exciting community-based events. Their Freestyle Lab series - part performance, part lecture, and part town hall conversation - launches on September 25th at the 53rd Street branch of the NY Public Library with #MeToo Shakespeare, an exhibition of Intimacy Choreography led by Alicia Rodis, co-founder of Intimacy Directors International. And in January/February 2019, they will present a new adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, conceived and directed by Brendan Averett (TFANA, Stratford Festival, Rattlestick).

Photo by MartinHarris