Chicago Shakespeare Announces Additional World's Stage Productions, Kicks Off 1/2011

Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) announces today the addition of two World's Stage productions to its 2010/11 Season: the award-winning, CST-commissioned Funk It Up About Nothin' embarks on a tour of Australia, preceded by a limited return engagement Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare in January 2011; and the National Theatre of Scotland's internationally-acclaimed production Black Watch is added to the CST World Stage Series, presented at Chicago's Broadway Armory from March 29 to April 10, 2011.

FUNK IT UP ABOUT NOTHIN'-Embarks on Australian tour in February 2011

Chicago Shakespeare Theater's award-winning Funk It Up About Nothin'-an exuberant hip-hop "ad-rap-tation" of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing-will embark on a ten-week tour of Australia from February through April, 2011, including engagements in Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Bathurst, Orange, Wagga, Albury and Wollongong. The tour will be preceded by a limited engagement Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare in January 2011, where co-creators and directors GQ and JQ (The Q Brothers) premiered the show in 2008. During the production's subsequent run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in Scotland, Funk It Up About Nothin' garnered the Dress Circle Award for Best Musical Production. It also received the Joseph Jefferson Award in Chicago for Outstanding Ensemble later that year. Born and raised in Chicago, The Q Brothers started their professional careers by co-creating and performing in the international hit The Bomb-itty of Errors. The Australian tour is being produced in partnership with Richard Jordan Productions Ltd. and Merrigong Theatre Company.

BLACK WATCH-From the National Theatre of Scotland March 29-April 10, 2011

National Theatre of Scotland's acclaimed Black Watch joins CST's World's Stage roster, presented at Chicago's Broadway Armory (5917 N. Broadway) from March 29 to April 10, 2011. An environmental, intensely physical production exploring the legendary Scottish regiment, Black Watch was named "a glowing ensemble production" by London's Guardian newspaper and the "#1 Theatrical Event of the Year" by The New York Times. The production has played throughout the world, including sold-out engagements in London, New Zealand, Toronto, Dublin, Glasgow, Australia and New York.

Situating audiences on two sides of a runway stage, Black Watch has been performed around the world in such unconventional spaces as drill halls, arenas and armories to create a dramatic military environment and accommodate the production's stylized physicality. Chicago's Broadway Armory, built in 1916 by architects Carpenter & Weldon, was originally designed as the Winter Garden Ice Skating Rink but was repurposed during World War I by the State of Illinois for military use-specifically for the training of troops. The Armory will set the scene for Black Watch, which hurtles its audience from a pool room in Fife to an armored wagon in Iraq as it weaves together stories based on playwright Gregory Burke's interviews with former soldiers who served in Iraq.

The production is directed by John Tiffany, associate director of the National Theatre of Scotland, with movement by Steven Hoggett, co-founder and artistic director of Frantic Assembly (London), whose choreography for Green Day's American Idiot is now playing on Broadway. In addition to four Laurence Olivier Awards for Best Director, Best Theatre Choreography, Best Play and Best Sound Design, Black Watch garnered the New York Drama Circle Award for Best Foreign Play in 2009.

More information about both productions is available at the Theater's website, www.chicagoshakes.com and tickets for Black Watch may be purchased online or by calling the Theater's Box Office at (312) 595-5600. The Chicago performance schedule for Funk It Up About Nothin' will be announced later this summer.

Chicago Shakespeare Theater's World's Stage Series affords Chicago theatergoers prime opportunities to experience different cultural and artistic traditions and some of the world's finest productions without leaving home. In curating the World's Stage, CST takes its cue from Shakespeare's high mark of quality and from Europe's freewheeling touring circuit, joining an international community of creative exchange. Since the inception of the World's Stage Series, CST has brought to Chicago audiences iconic troupes such as The Abbey Theatre (Dublin), Shakespeare's Globe Theatre (London), the Chekhov InterNational Theatre Festival (Moscow) and La Comédie-Française (Paris), among others. Chicago Shakespeare Theater has contributed to this international exchange by sending some of its best works abroad, including, the Olivier Award-winning production of Stephen Sondheim's Pacific Overtures (2003), Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2, which marked CST's debut at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-Upon-Avon (2006) and Funk It Up About Nothin', which garnered acclaim at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (2008) and embarks on a tour of Australia in 2011.

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