A.R.T. Announces Bedlam's SENSE & SENSIBILITY Casting

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University, under the leadership of Artistic Director Diane Paulus and Executive Producer Diane Borger, is pleased to present Bedlam's Sense & Sensibility. Written by Kate Hamill based on the novel by Jane Austen and directed by Eric Tucker, performances of the production recognized by The New York Times as having an "audaciously high energy level" will begin on Sunday, December 10, 2017, and continue through Sunday, January 14, 2018 at the Loeb Drama Center, 64 Brattle Street, in Cambridge.

Performance dates and times (Tuesdays - Sundays):

December 10, 12 - 17, 19 - 23, 26 - 31, 2 - 6, and 9 - 13 at 7:30PM

December 16 - 17, 23, 27, 30 - 31, January 3, 6 - 7, 10, and 13 - 14 at 2PM

December 20 at 11AM (student matinee, open to the public)

ASL Interpreted performances: Wednesday, January 3 at 7:30PM and Saturday, January 6 at 2PM

Audio Described performances: Friday, January 5 at 7:30PM and Sunday, January 7 at 2PM

Open Captioned performances: Thursday, January 4 at 7:30PM and Sunday, January 7 at 2PM

Tickets from $25 now on sale by phone at 617.547.8300, in person at the Loeb Drama Center Ticket Services Office (64 Brattle Street, Cambridge), and online at americanrepertorytheater.org/sense. Discounts are available for A.R.T. Subscribers and Donors, students, seniors, Blue Star families, EBT card holders, and others.

Eric Tucker's exuberant, inventive staging of Jane Austen's classic novel follows the adventures (and misadventures) of the Dashwood sisters-sensible Elinor and hypersensitive Marianne-after their sudden loss of fortune. Bursting with humor, emotion, and bold theatricality, Bedlam's Sense & Sensibility asks: when reputation is everything, how do you follow your heart? A.R.T. will transform its main stage in the Loeb Drama Center for this production, seating audience members on two sides of a long playing space to bring them closer to the action as scenery and actors traverse the stage throughout the fast-paced comedy.

About previous productions of Bedlam's Sense & Sensibility, NPR's Ira Glass told the Washington Post, "Save your Hamilton dollars and go see it." Broadway World says, "Playwright Kate Hamill is the best thing to happen to Jane Austen since Colin Firth. Her wonderfully witty and whimsical adaptations of Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility are the best stage adaptations of Austen's work to date."

The cast includes Bedlam's Sense & Sensibility veterans Jessica Frey as Marianne, Violeta Picayo as Margaret, and Benjamin Russell as John Willoughby/John Dashwood from the run at Gym at Judson; Nigel Gore as Mrs. Jennings from the Sheen Center run; and Lisa Birnbaum as Mrs. Dashwood/Anne Steel, Maggie Adams McDowell as Elinor, James Patrick Nelson as Colonel Brandon, and Jamie Smithson as Edward/Robert Ferrars from the Folger Theater that received the 2017 Helen Hayes Awards for Outstanding Production and Direction. Ryan Quinn (Bedlam's Dead Dog Park, 59E59) plays John Middleton, and Katie Hartke (Imogen in Cymbeline, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival) plays Fanny / Lucy Steel.

Bedlam Artistic Director Eric Tucker (Wall Street Journal Director of the Year 2014) helms the production with choreography by Alexandra Beller (Bedlam's Sense & Sensibility, 2017 Helen Hayes Award winner for Outstanding Choreography) scenic design by John McDermott (Bedlam's Peter Pan, Off-Broadway), lighting design by Les Dickert (Bedlam's Peter Pan, Off-Broadway), costume design by Angela Huff (the film Little Women), and sound design by Alex Neumann (Going to See the Kid, Merrimack Repertory Theatre).

"My love for Jane Austen's writing began when I was a teenager in a small town in rural America," says Hamill, whose script is being staged by dozens of regional theater companies across the nation this year. "Reading the novels of a woman who had died centuries before I was born, I recognized the eccentricities of my own neighbors. I read about people just like me, who struggled to reconcile their consciences with the dictates of society. I'm very proud to have Sense & Sensibility at A.R.T., directed by Eric Tucker, whose production bears Bedlam's invariably inventive and exciting style."

"In Sense & Sensibility, we try to use only what we need so our imaginations have to fill in quite a few holes," says Tucker, "and then the audience's imagination has to beat us there. That's what keeps it theatrical."

"In the spirit of The Heart of Robin Hood and Natasha, Pierre & the Great Comet of 1812, I invite families to join us at A.R.T. this holiday season for another production that celebrates the possibilities of the theatrical imagination," says A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus. "I couldn't be more thrilled to bring Bedlam's Sense & Sensibility to Cambridge, where our audience will delight in its irresistible sense of play."

Boston area audiences are familiar with Bedlam's approach to transforming classic texts from past productions of Saint Joan, Twelfth Night, and What You Will presented at Central Square Theatre. After Sense & Sensibility, audiences can next experience Bedlam's unique performance style in Hamlet and Saint Joan, to be presented in repertory at ArtsEmerson in March 2018.

Committed to the immediacy of the relationship between the actor and the audience, Bedlam creates works of theatre that reinvigorate traditional forms in a flexible, raw space, collapsing aesthetic distance and bringing viewers into direct contact with the dangers and delicacies of life. In this new, fresh, active environment, storytelling becomes paramount, and the result is a kinetic experience of shared empathy.

The American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) at Harvard University is a leading force in the American theater, producing groundbreaking work in Cambridge and beyond. The A.R.T. was founded in 1980 by Robert Brustein, who served as Artistic Director until 2002, when he was succeeded by Robert Woodruff. Diane Paulus began her tenure as Artistic Director in 2008. Under the leadership of Paulus and Executive Producer Diane Borger, the A.R.T. seeks to expand the boundaries of theater by programming events that immerse audiences in transformative theatrical experiences.

Throughout its history, the A.R.T. has been honored with many distinguished awards, including the Tony Award for Best New Play for All the Way (2014); consecutive Tony Awards for Best Revival of a Musical for Pippin (2013) and The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (2012), both of which Paulus directed; a Pulitzer Prize; a Jujamcyn Prize for outstanding contribution to the development of creative talent; the Tony Award for Best Regional Theater; and numerous Elliot Norton and IRNE Awards.

The A.R.T. collaborates with artists around the world to develop and create work in new ways. It is currently engaged in a number of multi-year projects, including a new collaboration with Harvard's Center for the Environment that will result in the development of new work over several years. Under Paulus's leadership, the A.R.T.'s club theater, OBERON, has been an incubator for local and emerging artists and has attracted national attention for its innovative programming and business models.

As the professional theater on the campus of Harvard University, the A.R.T. catalyzes discourse, interdisciplinary collaboration, and creative exchange among a wide range of academic departments, institutions, students, and faculty members, acting as a conduit between its community of artists and the university. The A.R.T. Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University, run in association with the Moscow Art Theatre School and the Harvard Extension School, offers graduate training in acting, dramaturgy, and voice. A.R.T. also plays a central role in Harvard's newly launched undergraduate Theater, Dance, and Media concentration, teaching courses in directing, dramatic literature, acting, voice, design, and dramaturgy.

Dedicated to making great theater accessible, the A.R.T. actively engages more than 5,000 community members and local students annually in project-based partnerships, workshops, conversations with artists, and other enrichment activities both at the theater and across the Greater Boston area.

Through all of these initiatives, the A.R.T. is dedicated to producing world-class performances in which the audience is central to the theatrical experience.

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