CALDERON'S LIFE IS A DREAM and 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE Coming Up Off-Broadway
By: BWW News Desk Jan. 21, 2015
Coming up next off-Broadway - Calderón's Life Is A Dream, directed by Matthew Rauch and starring Steven Boyer, Clifton Duncan, Zoe Kazan, Ismenia Mendes, Patrick Page, Jay O. Sanders, Thom Sesma, Nick Westrate, and more on Monday, February 2nd at SoHo Playhouse.
Plus, it's your last chance to see Red Bull Theater's finale of its three-part series in collaboration with the Shakespeare Society: Shakespeare and the Jacobeans on Film. See John Ford's 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE, a film by Roland Joffé, on Sunday, January 25th at the SVA Theatre.
Details below!
The next Revelation Reading, Calderón's Life Is A Dream, directed by Matthew Rauch and starring Steven Boyer, Clifton Duncan, Zoe Kazan, Ismenia Mendes, Patrick Page, Jay O. Sanders, Thom Sesma, Nick Westrate, and more, will take place Monday, February 2nd at SoHo Playhouse, 15 Vandam Street, off Avenue of the Americas.
Segismundo's only crime was being born ... or was it? This Spanish Golden Age classic explores metaphysical questions of identity that ring out with the full force of Shakespearean tragedy. Two travelers in a mystical world discover a prince, imprisoned by his father to thwart a prediction that he would destroy the kingdom. Together they grapple with destiny and the ephemeral nature of life itself. Considered by many to be the "Spanish Hamlet", Life is a Dream transcends its basis as an extraordinary philosophical treatise on the conflict between free will and fate, to become an ecstatically poetic flight of metaphoric fancy and a delightful fairytale for grown-ups.
Like many of his contemporaries, Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1660-1681) was a prolific playwright; he is thought to have written more than 200 plays, of which about 100 survive. Educated at a Jesuit preparatory school, he entered a poetry competition and came to the attention of one of the judges, Lope de Vega, the most notable playwright of the era. Calderón's plays were popular both at court and in the pubic theaters; with the death of Lope in 1635, Calderón become the most important playwright in Spain. He was knighted by Philip IV and became the principal court playwright in 1636, the year that La vida es sueno (Life is a Dream) was produced. Throughout his career, Calderón also wrote autos sacramentales, plays celebrating the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist and akin to English morality and cycle plays. Following the death of his mistress, Calderón entered the priesthood, but because the church objected to his playwriting, he wrote autos exclusively thereafter; his were so popular that for almost forty years the only autos performed in Madrid were by Calderón.
Red Bull Theater is also presenting the finale of its three-part collaboration with the Shakespeare Society exploring Shakespeare and the Jacobeans on film. This series included a Shakespeare Society major member event as well as two film screenings (one remains), at the SVA Theatre (333 West 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues) part of the School of Visual Arts. For more information and tickets, visit RedBullTheater.com.
'Tis Pity She's a Whore is still a few months away, but we've partnered with our friends at The Shakespeare Society for three exciting events to whet your appetite for the crown jewel of Jacobean drama. The evening will focus on the relationship between Shakespeare and his darker, bloodier-minded Jacobean successors, in particular the great poet and playwright John Ford. Using film clips from Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, Orson Welles's Othello and a rarely seen BBC adaptation of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, directed by Roland Joffé, we will reveal how Ford adapted and reworked Shakespeare's themes of violence, jealousy and desire in his own sinister, strangely hypnotic key," said Artistic Director Jesse Berger. This series will also offer the rare opportunity to see these complete films on the big screen in their cinematic glory:
Sunday, January 25th - In the 1970s Roland Joffé (best known for the Academy Award-winning films The Killing Fields and The Mission) directed some of television's finest social-realist films. He applied the same approach to this truly remarkable version of John Ford's drama 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1981). A tale of incestuous passion written around 1629 is translated to the early Victorian period and turned to critique the sexual and economic hypocrisies of the 19th century.
In addition to the upcoming Off-Broadway mainstage production of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Red Bull's Eleventh Season features an ongoing series of OBIE Award-winning Revelation Readings (Monday evenings at 7:30pm), presenting staged readings of new and rarely performed classic plays from all eras and cultures.
Upcoming Readings include:
· February 16 - Euripides' Hippolytos - by contemporary poet Anne Carson; Directed by Ted Pappas with Laila Robins and Olympia Dukakis at the Cherry Lane Theatre;
· March 2 - John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan - Directed by Michael Sexton with Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe at Lucille Lortel Theatre;
· March 9 - John Ford's Perkin Warbeck - Directed by Carl Forsman with Brian D'Arcy James at Lucille Lortel Theatre;
· May 4 - John Ford's Love's Sacrifice - Directed by Craig Baldwin with Tina Benko and Christopher Innvar at Playwrights Horizons;
· June 29 - Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal - with Charles Busch and Everett Quinton at Lucille Lortel Theatre *The second of two Ridiculous collaborations with Busch and Quinton this season.
Tickets for Revelation Readings are $42 with Premium Seats available at $64. Become a Member and get them for only $25! (For complete list of Readings and updated cast information, visit www.redbulltheater.com). All artists subject to change.
Other special events include Master Classes, running February 20th - 24th with Olympia Dukakis.
This season's mainstage production, John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, directed by Berger, will begin a limited engagement April 14th at The Duke on 42nd Street. Opening Night is set for Sunday April 26th.
What if Romeo and Juliet were brother and sister? Find out in this daring and provocative thriller. Red Bull Theater returns to its roots with the bloodiest and sexiest of all Jacobean tragedies. This heart-pounding tale of love, lust and hypocrisy is a deliciously perverse romantic tragedy. Siblings Annabella and Giovanni fall into an incestuous affair with a brutal velocity that sets Renaissance Parma aflame with its passionate force. Defiant in their desires to the bloody end, these lovers take "star-crossed" into a whole new galaxy. This crown jewel of Jacobean drama has scandalized and enthralled audiences for four centuries with its singular journey through the fires of desire. In its first major Off-Broadway production in 20 years, this rollicking ride will have your moral compass spinning wildly.
Single tickets for 'Tis Pity She's a Whore go on sale January 5th for $62, with Premium Seats available at $84 at www.redbulltheater.com or at (212) 352-3101.
Red Bull Theater is the not-profit Off-Broadway theater company specializing in plays of heightened language. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, Red Bull Theater embraces the imagination of theatergoers through intimate, imaginative productions of great classic stories from all eras and cultures. Red Bull Theater's eleventh season builds upon their unique history and mission to present vital and imaginative renderings of heightened language plays from all eras and cultures as they launch a second decade of sharing great classic stories.
Red Bull Theater has previously staged productions of Shakespeare's Pericles, the anonymous Revenger's Tragedy, Marlowe's Edward the Second, Middleton's Women Beware Women, Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, the Off-Broadway premiere of Dekker, Ford & Rowley's The Witch of Edmonton, a major Off-Broadway revival of Jean Genet's The Maids, a new version of Strindberg's The Dance of Death by Mike Poulton, rare New York revivals of Loot and The Mystery of Irma Vep, and the first Off-Broadway revival of Volpone in over 50 years. The company's work has been hailed over the years as "the most exciting classical theater in New York" (Time Out New York), "Dynamite! (The New York Times), "the city's gutsiest classical theater" (Time Out New York), "Triumphant" (Associated Press), and "Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years" (Variety), among others.
Red Bull Theater's work has been recognized with multiple Callaway, Drama League, Lucille Lortel, and OBIE Award nominations and Awards. The company has staged over 125 readings through its ongoing OBIE Award-winning Revelation Readings, named by the Village Voice "Best Play Reading Series," and has developed new plays of heightened language and classical adaptations through its In-the-Raw workshop series. Red Bull Theater reaches out to NYC students of all ages through "Direct Address" education programs teaching Shakespeare in middle schools and student matinees. Post-play "Bull Session" discussions with scholars following selected Sundaymatinees and Readings are free and open to the public.
Red Bull Theater offers Master Classes, Classical Acting Intensives and Workshops throughout the year and taught by top working professionals including Kathleen Chalfant, John Douglas Thompson, Olympia Dukakis, Heidi Griffiths, and Patrick Page, Red Bull Theater's intensives and workshops cover a variety of disciplines, including auditioning, text, voice, movement, clowning, stage combat, and acting Shakespeare. Classes are open to adults at all levels of training or experience. They range from one to six days with limited class sizes to allow one-on-one attention. You can enroll in any combination of classes, or take the whole series for a yearlong master training experience. Visit www.redbulltheater.com for complete details.
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