Estelle Parsons, Chukwudi Iwuji & More Set for Red Bull Theater's CORIOLANUS Reading

Red Bull Theater today announced that their Twelfth Season will continue with Shakespeare's Coriolanus, directed by Michael Sexton, on Monday March 7th at 7:30 PM, at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, between Bleecker and Hudson). Featured in the cast will be Estelle Parsons (Academy Award winner for Bonnie and Clyde and nominee for Rachel, Rachel, five time Tony Award nominee), Chukwudi Iwuji (Olivier Award-winning Henry VI Trilogy at the Royal Shakespeare Company, TFANA's Tamburlaine, NYSF's King Lear), Matthew Rauch ("Banshee"), Jay O. Sanders ("Person of Interest," "Law & Order: Criminal Intent"), along with David Barlow, Louis Cancelmi, Henry Clarke, Kimiye Corwin, Autumn Dornfeld, Emily Gardner Hall, Peter Francis James, Merritt Janson, Ian Lassiter, Michael Schantz and more. Coriolanus will be a co-presentation with The Shakespeare Society. Tickets may be purchased online at www.redbulltheater.com or by phone at (212) 352-3101.

What was Shakespeare's take on politics? Between the competing claims of democracy and aristocracy, amidst the din of famished citizens and enraged soldiers, looms the personal tragedy of one man's, and his mother's, emotional blindness. Coriolanus is a fierce and decorated Roman general, but when he decides to seek political leadership, he might find the unbending pride of a soldier is not the right temperament for politics. When the people revolt, this Roman hero could quickly become Rome's most dangerous enemy.

Following the reading, LIU Professor of English James Bednarz (author of Shakespeare and the Truth of Love) will lead a post-reading discussion of the play and its themes with Michael Sexton and members of the company.

Future Revelation Readings will include Frances Burney's The Woman Hater, Shakespeare's Hamlet, William Congreve's The Way of the World, and the sixth annual Short New Play Festival, with casts that include Arnie Burton (Irma Vep - Red Bull Theater; Lives of the Saints); Chukwudi Iwuji (Henry VI Trilogy - Royal Shakespeare Company, Tamburlaine, King Lear); Arian Moayed (Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo), Patrick Page (The Duchess of Malfi - Red Bull Theater, Spring Awakening), and Nick Westrate (Loot - Red Bull Theater, Casa Valentina), among others..

Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School For Scandal, directed by Marc Vietor, will begin its limited run April 8th at the Lortel Theater. Opening Night is set for April 24th, 2016. In this comic masterpiece, Sheridan mercilessly dissects a social network of grotesques, gossips, lustful hypocrites and anonymous assassins of reputation who live in a world without privacy, morality or taste. After seventeen years abroad Oliver Surface returns home incognito to test the true characters of his nephews, Charles (a prodigal, apparently), and Joseph (a paragon, supposedly). Meanwhile he discovers his old friend Peter Teazle has wed a young country wife and is in marital purgatory, being victimized in print and society by a spiteful team of imbeciles and rumor-mongers - Fun for the whole family.

Red Bull Theater's OBIE Award-winning Revelation Readings (Monday evenings at 7:30pm) present staged readings of new and rarely performed classic plays from all eras and cultures. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as the cornerstone of our mission, Red Bull Theater is dedicated to the rediscovery and re-investigation of classics from all eras and cultures, and to the development of new plays of heightened language and classical themes. Revelation Readings provides a unique opportunity to hear these plays performed by many of the finest actors in New York.

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