ARDEN OF FAVERSHAM Off-Broadway Enters Final Week of Performances

RED BULL THEATER is presenting the first of its two Off-Broadway productions, Arden of Faversham, at the newly renovated Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street between Bleecker and Hudson Streets). This strictly-limited engagement continues through Saturday April 1st only.

Inspired by actual events, Arden of Faversham is an Elizabethan play of unknown authorship-some say, Shakespeare. Obie Award-winner Jesse Berger (The Alchemist, The Government Inspector) directs this new adaptation from Jeffrey Hatcher (The Alchemist, The Government Inspector) and Kathryn Walat (Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen).

The cast is lead by Cara Ricketts as Alice (Broadway: Time and the Conways; Off-Broadway: Measure for Measure - Theatre for a New Audience; several seasons at Stratford Festival), Thomas Jay Ryan (Broadway: West Side Story, The Nap, The Crucible, In the Next Room Or The Vibrator Play; Off-Broadway: Becky Nurse of Salem, The Temperamentals) as her husband Arden, and Tony Roach as her lover Mosby (Broadway: Flying Over Sunset, My Fair Lady, Bright Star; Off-Broadway: The Liar - CSC). They are joined by Veronica Falcón (New York stage debut), Zachary Fine (Broadway: China Doll with Al Pacino; Off-Broadway: Coriolanus - Red Bull Theater, Fashions For Men - Mint Theater); Emma Geer (Prayer for the French Republic - MTC, Mary Page Marlowe - Second Stage, How To Transcend a Happy Marriage - Lincoln Center Theater, Hindle Wakes and The Price of Thomas Scott - Mint Theater); Joshua David Robinson (The Minutes - Broadway, The Unbelieving - Off-Broadway); Thom Sesma (A Man of No Importance - CSC, Letters of Suresh - Lortel Award nomination, Pacific Overtures - Lortel Award nomination, Sweeney Todd - Barrow Street Theatre); David Ryan Smith (Broadway: One Man Two Guvnors, Passing Strange; Off-Broadway: Epiphany - Lincoln Center Theater); and Haynes Thigpen (Broadway: Dead Accounts, Misalliance. Red Bull: Revenger's Tragedy, Duchess of Malfi).

"Arden of Faversham is one of the English-speaking theater's first true-crime stories. Darkly comic-with a shocking ending-it's Macbeth meets Double Indemnity meets Fargo. And it features one of the strongest and most mercurial female protagonists in Elizabethan drama, whose wit and passions drive the action. This play has been on my 'must-do' list for years, and I'm thrilled to finally have an opportunity to tackle it, especially in a crackling new adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher and Kathryn Walat. Their work heightens the thrills, sharpens the laughs, and deepens the passions of the original, enlivening the ways in which this rarely-produced classic speaks - playfully and powerfully - to today's audiences," said Mr. Berger.

It's Valentine's Day and Alice Arden wants her husband dead. He's come into money and all she can think about is her lover, Mosby. So, the pair enter into a pact to murder Arden and engage a cluster of killers to do the deed. If only they weren't so spectacularly inept. Inspired by actual events, this sexy thriller of unknown authorship - some say, Shakespeare - is a bloody, darkly comic Elizabethan noir

"Printed in 1592 with no authorial attribution, Arden of Faversham has long been seen as the most famous anonymous play from the Elizabethan era," explains scholar Tanya Pollard. "In recent years, however, its authorship has become a topic of heated critical debate. Scholars have generally agreed that the play was written collaboratively, as was typical of early modern drama in general and especially at the time of Arden's composition. New work with computational stylistic analysis has supported a growing consensus that the play was written by two authors: one possibly Thomas Watson, and the other, responsible for many of the play's middle scenes, William Shakespeare. If Shakespeare contributed to Arden, as seems increasingly likely, it would be one of the earliest plays in which he had a hand - possibly the earliest. As such, it introduces suggestive details about his early artistic development. In particular, its unusually substantial and complex female leading role offers a haunting pre-history for later Shakespearean creations such as Rosalind, Lady Macbeth, and Cleopatra. This production compounds the play's collaborative voices with two newer additions: Jeffrey Hatcher and Kathryn Walatt."

ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHTS

Jeffrey Hatcher's work was last presented by Red Bull Theater in 2021 with the acclaimed romp The Alchemist and in 2017 with his hit version of inane corruption à la Gogol, The Government Inspector. His Broadway credits include Never Gonna Dance (book). Off-Broadway credits include Three Viewings and A Picasso at Manhattan Theatre Club; Scotland Road and The Turn of the Screw at Primary Stages; Tuesdays with Morrie (with Mitch Albom) at the Minetta Lane; Murder by Poe, The Turn of the Screw, and The Spy at The Acting Company; and Neddy at American Place. Other credits include Compleat Female Stage Beauty, Mrs. Mannerly, Murderers, Mercy of a Storm, Smash, Korczak's Children, To Fool the Eye, Confederacy of Dunces, The Critic, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and others at The Guthrie, Old Globe, Yale Rep, The Geffen, Seattle Rep, Cincinnati Playhouse, Cleveland Playhouse, South Coast Rep, Arizona Theater Company, San Jose Rep, The Empty Space, Indiana Rep, Children's Theater Company, History Theater, Madison Rep, Intiman, Illusion, Denver Center, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Milwaukee Rep, Repertory Theater of St. Louis, Actors Theater of Louisville, Philadelphia Theater Company, Huntington, Shakespeare Theatre (D.C.), Asolo, City Theater, Studio Arena and dozens more in the U.S. and abroad. Film and television credits include Stage Beauty, Casanova, The Duchess, Mr. Holmes, and episodes of "Columbo" and "The Mentalist." Grants/awards: NEA, TCG, Lila Wallace Fund, Rosenthal New Play Prize, Frankel Award, Charles MacArthur Fellowship Award, McKnight Foundation, Jerome Foundation, Barrymore Award Best New Play, and IVEY Award Best New Play. He is a member and/or alumnus of The Playwrights Center, the Dramatists Guild, the Writers Guild, and New Dramatists.

Kathryn Walat is a playwright and opera librettist. Her play Creation, developed at The O'Neill, premiered at the Theatre @ Boston Court and was nominated for a LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award for Playwriting. Her Victoria Martin: Math Team Queen premiered Off-Broadway at WP and was published in New Playwrights: The Best Plays of 2007. Her Bleeding Kansas premiered at the Hangar Theatre and received a Francesca Primus Citation (American Theatre Critics Association). Other plays include See Bat Fly (Kilroy's List; Brown/Trinity Playwrights Rep), Ancient Gods of the Backwoods (New Georges' Germ Project), Know Dog (Salvage Vanguard), Johnny Hong Kong (Perishable Theatre), and On the Road (Actors' Theatre of Louisville/Anthology Project). Her work as an opera librettist includes Paul's Case (PROTOTYPE, Pittsburgh Opera) with composer Gregory Spears, named in New Yorker magazine's Ten Notable Performances for 2014; its recording from National Sawdust Tracks was named in Opera News' Five Best New Works of 2019. The Echo Drift was commissioned and produced by Beth Morrison Projects, HERE, and American Opera Projects, and premiered at PROTOTYPE Festival. She is an affiliated artist with New Georges and the Playwrights' Center, and an associate professor and resident playwright at SUNY Albany. BA, Brown University; MFA, David Geffen School of Drama at Yale.

ABOUT THE DIRECTOR

Jesse Berger has directed Pericles, The Revenger's Tragedy, Edward the Second, Women Beware Women, The Duchess of Malfi, The Witch of Edmonton, The Maids, Volpone, Loot, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Changeling, The Government Inspector and The Alchemist since founding Red Bull Theater in 2003. Jesse has also directed across the country at Denver Center (Richard III), The Old Globe (Othello), Pittsburgh Public Theatre (Venus in Fur, Circle Mirror Transformation, An Iliad, A Number, I Am My Own Wife, The Laramie Project), PlayMakers Rep (An Iliad), Barrington Stage (Absurd Person Singular, Sleuth), Great Lakes Theater Festival, Dorset Theatre Festival, Washington Shakespeare Company, and the Utah, Idaho, and St. Louis Shakespeare Festivals, among others. Helen Hayes Award for Outstanding Direction (Marat/Sade), Drama League and Lucille Lortel Award nominations for Outstanding Revival (The Maids); SDC Callaway Award nominations for Excellence in Directing (The Government Inspector, The Witch of Edmonton, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore), OBIE Award for Outstanding Direction (The Government Inspector).

ABOUT RED BULL THEATER

Red Bull Theater brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences, uniting a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the years of Puritan rule, Red Bull Theater is New York City's home for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, the company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics. A home for artists, scholars, and students, Red Bull Theater delights and engages the intellect and imagination of audiences, and strives to make its work accessible, diverse, and welcoming to all. We value and practice inclusiveness, equity, and diversity in all of our activities, and are committed to antiracist action. Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and plays of heightened language to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique, collective experiences, and in the timeless capacity of classical theater to illuminate the events of our times. Variety agreed, hailing Red Bull's work as: "Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years."

Since its debut in 2003 with a production of Shakespeare's Pericles starring Daniel Breaker, Red Bull Theater has served adventurous theatergoers with Off-Broadway productions, Revelation Readings, and the annual Short New Play Festival. The company also offers outreach programs including Shakespeare in Schools bringing professional actors and teaching artists into public school classrooms; Bull Sessions, free post-play discussions with top scholars; and Classical Acting Intensives led by veteran theater professionals. During the pandemic, Red Bull created several new and ongoing programs to serve audiences and artists with our mission: RemarkaBULL Podversations, Online Readings, Seminars, and more.

Red Bull Theater has presented 20 Off-Broadway productions and nearly 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists and providing quality artistic programming to an audience of over 65,000. The company's unique programming has received ongoing critical acclaim and has been recognized with Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Off-Broadway Alliance, and OBIE nominations and Awards.