Hunter Theater Project Will Present MAC BETH

Hunter College president Jennifer J. Raab announced today that Hunter Theater Project will present a strictly limited return engagement for Red Bull Theater's critically acclaimed production of Mac Beth, adapted and directed by Erica Schmidt, from the play by William Shakespeare.

The production will play seven weeks only from Monday, January 6 through Saturday, February 22, 2020, with opening night on Tuesday, January 21 at the Frederick Loewe Theatre, East 68th Street, between Park and Lexington Avenues. Tickets ($49, $15 for students with ID, with no service charge) will go on sale on Wednesday, November 13 at www.huntertheaterproject.org.

Mac Beth, which runs 90 minutes with no intermission, originally premiered in 2018 at Seattle Repertory Theatre. Red Bull Theater's production played from May 7 through June 9, 2019 at the Lucille Lortel Theatre, where the run was extended by popular demand.

On an autumn afternoon, in an empty lot outside the city, seven school girls meet up to perform a play. In an urban wasteland, the girls in their tartan school uniforms transform into witches, ghosts, and kings. They hurl headlong into the unchecked passions of Macbeth-in Shakespeare's original text-as the line between real life and blood fantasy quickly blurs. Through prophecies and smartphones, blood and Beyonce, unexpected resonances emerge from Shakespeare's dark nightmare of ambition gone awry, while at the same time, these young women discover what's done cannot be undone.

Schmidt's previous Shakespeare adaptations and productions include Richard II with Robert Sean Leonard (The New Group), As You Like It (Public Theater/NYSF), Love's Labour's Lost (Juilliard), and Titus Andronicus (Vassar). She is currently represented Off-Broadway with The New Group's Cyrano, starring Peter Dinklage, at the Daryl Roth Theatre. Other credits include All the Fine Boys (The New Group, writer/director); Turgenev's A Month in the Country with Peter Dinklage and Taylor Schilling (CSC); Taking Care of Baby (MTC); Trust (The Play Company, Callaway Award nomination); and Debbie Does Dallas, which she wrote and directed.

The cast of Mac Beth will feature Brittany Bradford (Bernhardt/Hamlet, Fefu and Her Friends) as Macbeth, Dylan Gelula ("Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt," First Girl I Loved) as Witch 1, Sophie Kelly-Hedrick (Red Bull's Mac Beth) as Witch 2, Ismenia Mendes ("Orange is the New Black") as Lady Macbeth, and Ayana Workman (Public Theatre's Romeo and Juliet) as Banquo, with additional casting to be announced.

Set design is by Catherine Cornell, costume design is by Jessica Pabst, lighting design is by Jeff Croiter, sound design is by Erin Bednarz, and movement by Lorenzo Pisoni. The production manager is Jeff Harris and general manager is Rebecca Sherman.

The Hunter Theater Project production of Mac Beth is made possible by a generous gift from Susie Sainsbury and the Backstage Trust.

Visit www.huntertheaterproject.org for tickets and performance schedule.

To post a comment, you must register and login.