Bogosian & Emerson Lead Red Bull Theater's Revelation Readings this Season

Red Bull Theater's Revelation Readings series will feature an all-star talent pool that includes the likes of Eric Bogosian and Michael Emerson. The series, which began readings on September 14th will continue through June 14, 2010. The series is meant to rediscover neglected classics, and to develop new plays of heightened language and classical themes.

The reading schedule includes:

Monday November 2nd, 7:30pm
PENELOPE
Book by Ellen McLaughlin
Music by Sarah Kirkland Snider
Based on Homer's Odyssey, this new music- theater piece explores the trauma of war through one woman's journey into her husband's lost memory.
Directed by Lisa Rothe
    Featuring Ellen McLaughlin

Monday November 30th, 7:30pm
THE PRETENDERS
by Henrik Ibsen
translated by Michael Meyer
The corrupting force of political power is rendered with jaw-dropping psychological detail in this rarely performed thriller.
Directed by Craig Baldwin
Featuring Alvin Epstein, Sam Tsoutsouvas, and Elisabeth Waterston
Post-play Bull Session

Monday December 14th, 7:30pm
BÉRÉNICE
by Jean Racine
translated and adapted by Neil Bartlett
A tragic tale of true love, this pinnacle of French drama examines what real love is, even as that love cannot survive.
Directed by Joseph Hardy
Featuring Kathryn Meisle, Matthew Rauch, and Marc Vietor
Post-play Bull Session

Monday December 28th, 7:30pm
A WOMAN KILLED WITH KINDNESS
by Thomas Heywood
Chronicling the fall of a pure wife and the fate of a young virgin, this domestic tragedy dissects the nature of revenge.
Directed by Kay Matschullat
Featuring Michael Emerson and Carrie Preston

Monday January 11th, 7:30pm
THE DUKE OF MILAN
by Philip Massinger
Pathos and satire mix it up in this Jacobean treasure about honor, revenge, and loving neither well nor wisely.
Directed by Damon Krometis
Featuring Matthew Rauch

Monday January 25th, 7:30pm
CALIGULA
by Albert Camus
"I am going to give this new century the gift of meaninglessness." - Experience the reign of Caligula through existentialist eyes.
Directed by Marc Vietor
Featuring Michael Urie

Monday February 8th, 7:30pm
BURNING, BURNING, BURNING, BURNING
by David Bar Katz
Poland. 1666. A prophet throws his village into chaos infusing the people with messianic zeal to hasten the End of Days.
Directed by Sarah Benson
Featuring Eric Bogosian and Michael Stuhlbarg

Monday March 15th, 7:30pm
THE STEWARD OF THE DUCHESS OF AMALFI
by Lope De Vega
A lyrical, haunting tragedy of tortured desire, class conflict and revenge - written a few years after Webster's version.
newly translated by Álvaro Mendoza
Directed by Michael John Garcés
Featuring Zabryna Guevara and Alfredo Narciso

Monday March 22nd, 7:30pm
BRECHT'S DUCHESS OF MALFI
Adapted by Bertolt Brecht and W.H. Auden
Brecht's version of Webster's masterpiece for a 1946 Broadway production intensifies the original's dark undercurrents.
Directed by Ian Strasfogel
Featuring Francesca Faridany

Monday May 17th, 7:30pm
‘TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE
By John Ford
The classic Jacobean tale - John Ford turns Romeo & Juliet into siblings, and all manner of madness ensues.
Directed by Anne Kaufmann
Featuring Peter Francis James

Monday May 24th, 7:30pm
GILGAMESH, THE PRINCE
By David Rabe
World Premiere
Linguistic leaps abound in this hilarious version of the legendary epic Gilgamesh - Part One - in which the Queen, his mother, cannot find him.
Directed by Leigh Silverman
Featuring Michael Stuhlbarg

Monday June 14th, 7:30pm
LOVE FOR LOVE
By William Congreve
With racy and outrageous sexual games and satire, this masterpiece of Restoration Comedy is full of disguises, deceptions, and delights.
Directed by Davis McCallum

Eric Bogosian's best known work is "Talk Radio" in which he starred Off-Broadway and in the Oliver Stone film of the same name. In 2006, the play was brought to Broadway, garnering Tony nominations for the play and for Liev Schreiber, who starred. For the original stage version, Bogosian was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and for the film he received the prestigious Berlin Film Festival's Silver Bear. In addition to "Talk Radio", Bogosian is the author of several plays, including "subUrbia", which was produced by Lincoln Center Theater in 1994. The play was adapted to the screen by Richard Linklater and revived Off- Broadway with an updated script in 2006. His most recent play, "1+1" was produced by New York Stage & Film in 2008. Bogosian is also well-known for the six Off-Broadway solos he wrote for himself between 1980 and 2000. For these he was awarded three OBIE awards as well as the Drama Desk. The solos, including "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll" and "Pounding Nails in the Floor with Forehead" are produced around the world and have become a mainstay of the American theater repertory.

Michael Emerson got his big break in 1997 when he starred as Oscar Wilde in Moises Kaufman's critically-acclaimed off-Broadway play, Gross Indecency: The Trials of Oscar Wilde, and then followed up with several other notable stage performances. In 1998, he performed opposite Uma Thurman in the off-Broadway production of Le Misanthrope. In 1999, he played the part of Willie Oban in The Iceman Cometh with Kevin Spacey. He co-starred with Kate Burton in both Give Me Your Answer, Do! and Hedda Gabler.

Tickets for the readings are $30 for adults and $15 for students and industry personel. Tickets are available online through www.ovationtix.com. Please make reservations in advance as Revelation Readings often sell out.

Red Bull Theater is a New York-based theater company pecializing in plays of heightened language. With a unique focus on the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his ontemporaries, Red Bull Theater embraces the imagination of theatergoers through intimate, evocative productions of great classic stories.

For more information, visit www.redbulltheater.com.

 

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