Gingold Theatrical Group continues the 14th Season of Project Shaw, Art as Activism: A Theatrical Survival Guide, a special series of evenings of plays that embrace human rights and free speech. All of GTG's programming, inspired by the works of George Bernard Shaw, are designed to provoke peaceful discussion and activism.
Next up, on Monday May 20th, Project Shaw will present
Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman, directed by GTG Artistic Director
David Staller, and starring Kate Abruzesse (numerous regional credits including Baltimore Center Stage, Chautauqua Theatre Co, Shakespeare & Co, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival),
Rajesh Bose (Henry VI for NAATCO, India Pale Ale for
Manhattan Theater Club, Indian Ink at Roundabout),
Christian DeMarais (Hamlet - Public Theater, The School for Scandal, Out of Bounds - The Lark),
Susannah Perkins (currently starring on Broadway in Network),
Thom Sesma (currently: Fruiting Bodies; recent credits include Superhero, Sweeney Todd, The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui), A. J. Shively (Broadway: Bright Star, La Cage aux Folles),
Ryan Spahn (Daniel's Husband, Summer and Smoke),
Paxton Whitehead (Habeas Corpus, The Crucifer of Blood, Absurd Person Singular Camelot, Noises Off, A Doll's House, Rondelay, Candida,),
Lenny Wolpe (GTG's Heartbreak House, Bullets Over Broadway, The Drowsy Chaperone, Wicked, The Sound of Music, Mayor the Musical, Copperfield), and
Karen Ziemba (GTG's Heartbreak House, Curtains - Tony & Drama Desk nominations, Never Gonna Dance - Tony nomination, Contact - Tony Award & Drama Desk Award), Steel Pier - Tony & Drama Desk nominations, I Do I Do - Drama Desk nomination, And the World Goes 'Round - Drama Desk Award).
A Shaw comedy of Hellish proportions: Jack, a confirmed bachelor, is determined to keep clear of Ann's matrimonial designs on him. He flees across continents and even, in the dream act of Don Juan In Hell, to Hades for a chat with the Devil, and back again, to avoid entrapment. But, finally, her intelligent will is too much for him. This incendiary play will be performed complete, though in a Shaw-approved two hour and 45-minute version.
"With this comedy from 1903, Shaw single-handedly reinvented everything that Victorian Theatre conventions had come to represent. Turning everything thought sacrosanct on its head including sex roles, psychology, dream analysis, modern travel, class systems, the British aristocracy, the middle classes, and the bourgeoisie, Shaw pokes fun and everyone and everything with the purpose of reminding us to have the courage to build a life for ourselves independent of societal expectations," said
David Staller.
Following Man and Superman will be Shaw's The Philanderer on June 24th, The Stepmother by
Githa Sowerby on July 22nd, Scintillating Shaw Symposium with an international panel on September 23, Shaw's Arms and the Man on October 28th, followed by The Play's The Thing by Ferenc Molnar on November 18th, ending the season with I'll Leave It To You by
Noel Coward on December 16th.
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All the plays in this series will be presented in a concert-reading format at the
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater at
Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street. Tickets are $40 and are available by calling 212-864-5400 or online at
www.symphonyspace.org. Special reserved VIP seating available for $55 by contacting the Gingold office 212-355-7823 or info@gingoldgroup.org.
Symphony Space's
Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre space is completely accessible. Infra-red hearing devices are also available.
Now celebrating its 14th year, Gingold Theatrical Group's Project Shaw made history in 2009 as the first company ever to present performances of every one of Shaw's 65 plays (including full-length works, one-acts and sketches). Since 2013, they also present works by writers who share Shaw's activist socio-political views embracing human rights and free speech, including work by Chekhov, Ibsen,
Elizabeth Robins,
Rachel Crothers, Pinero, Wilde, Barrie, and
Harley Granville-Barker. GTG's other programs include its new play development and educational programs. For those interested in lively off-site discourses, each Project Shaw event is followed by a talk-back with cast members. GTG's
David Staller and
Stephen Brown-Fried also host a monthly Shaw Club discussion group.
GTG recently completed a highly acclaimed Off-Broadway engagement of Shaw's Heartbreak House.
Terry Teachout in the The Wall Street Journal declared, "Mr. Staller has taken on Heartbreak House, one of Shaw's most challenging plays, with altogether extraordinary results. Every gesture lands with the utmost potency, and the climactic convulsion that is the play's final scene sweeps away the bubbly comedy and leaves you, as Shaw intended, in shock. Mr. Staller has given us a uniquely satisfying production of this great but hard-to-stage play. This is one of the finest Shaw stagings of the past decade. Do not miss it." In his year end recap, Mr. Teachout named Heartbreak House Best Classical Production of the year: "
David Staller's conceptual staging of
George Bernard Shaw's Heartbreak House, produced off Broadway by the Gingold Theatrical Group, was the best thing Mr. Staller has given us to date-which is saying something." GTG"s next off-Broadway production this autumn and will be of Shaw's Caesar and Cleopatra.
For more information about Project Shaw and all the programs at Gingold Theatrical Group, call 212-355-7823, email info@gingoldgroup.org, or visit
gingoldgroup.org.
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