Performances Begin Tonight For THE WHITE DEVIL At The Lortel Theatre

Red Bull Theater (Jesse Berger, Artistic Director | Jim Bredeson, Managing Director) begins performances tonight Tuesday March 19th for John Webster's The White Devil at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street between Bleecker & Hudson Streets). Opening Night is set for March 31st. The limited Off-Broadway engagement will continue through April 14th.

Louisa Proske will direct John Webster's The White Devil-a play that was was first performed at the original Red Bull theatre in the early months of 1612-is being given its first NY production in over fifty years (It was last revived in 1965 at the Circle in the Square starring Frank Langella).

Amara James Aja (Off-Broadway debut! Twelfth Night, Hamlet, Macbeth - The Old Globe); Jenny Bacon (Heartless - Signature Theatre; In The Wake - The Public Theatre; A Streetcar Named Desire, Most Fabulous Story Ever Told, More Stately Mansions), Lisa Birnbaum (Off-Bway: F#%king Up Everything, I'm Getting My Act Together..., Abe Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party, Lizzie Borden), Robert Cuccioli (Bway: Jekyll & Hyde - Tony Award nomination, Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, Les Miserables), Edward O'Blenis (Off-Bway: Coriolanus, Spring Awakening, Hamlet), Daniel Oreskes (Bway: Oslo, The Miracle Worker, Billy Elliot, Cymbeline, Aida, Electra, The Song of Jacob Zulu; Off-Bway: Hir, The Devils, Henry V, Quills, Othello), Cherie Corinne Rice (Off-Bway: The Lark, Ensemble Studio Theater; Regional: Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, Berkeley Rep, Trinity Rep), Socorro Santiago (Bway: The Bacchae; Off-Bway: L'illusion - NYTW; The Promise - EST; "Mozart in the Jungle"), Tommy Schrider (Bway: War Horse; Off-Bway: Macbeth -TFANA; Close Ties - EST; Acts of Mercy - Rattlestick; She Stoops to Conquer - Irish Rep; "The Americans"); Derek Smith (Bway: The Green Bird -Tony nomination, Timon of Athens, The Lion King; Off-Broadway: Sylvia, The Green Bird - Obie Award, King John - Derwent Award; 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, The Witch of Edmonton - Callaway Award), and T. Ryder Smith (Broadway: Oslo, War Horse, Equus; Off Bway: Summer and Smoke - CSC/Transport Group; She Stoops to Comedy - Playwrights Horizons) will star.

The White Devil will have set design by Kate Noll, costume design by Beth Goldenberg, lighting design by Jiyoun Chang, sound design by Chad Raines, and video design by Yana Birÿkova.

"With this thrilling cast featuring some of New York's finest actors under the brilliant direction of Louisa Proske, I know we're all in for a rare treat with Webster's provocative and shockingly timely play." Berger continued, "and we're reconfiguring the Lucille Lortel Theater seating arrangement into a three quarter thrust to create a wonderfully intimate experience for it. I can't wait to share this experience with New York's finest theater audiences!"

"Webster is a playwright for our time. Writing about a society on its slide towards civil war, he described the corrosion of institutions by greed and hypocrisy and the lack of any future for young people with an urgency that makes the roller-coaster plot of The White Devil seem as if snatched from current headlines. Its deeper concerns - corruption, rampant voyeurism, and systemic misogyny - speak directly to our present experience, though in the poetic, visceral, juicy language of 1612 rather than the truncated twitter lingo of 2019. In spite of his dark subject matter, Webster's gallows humor and satirical gift keeps his audience engaged and laughing. Our production will interpret his White Devil as a poignantly contemporary dystopia, a deep dive into the dizzying maze of political power. Using live video to mirror Webster's world of seductive images, perversion, surveillance and violence, it traces an explosive love affair and the story of an extraordinary woman in a world of deceit, objectification, and fake news," said Louisa Proske.

Louisa Proske is the recipient of a 2018 Princess Grace Award and was chosen as the Musical America New Artist of the Month for May 2018. She is co-artistic director of Heartbeat Opera, a company that grows vivid theatrical worlds through revelatory adaptations, radical rearrangements, and ingenious design. Theatre productions include peerless (nominated for a Berkshire Theatre Award for Outstanding Direction), Gaslight, This, Engagements (all Barrington Stage Company), One Day When We Were Young (Assembly, Edinburgh), Pinkalicious the Musical (Hangar Theatre), The Winstons (Juilliard School of Drama), 'Tis Pity She's A Whore (The Tank), Cymbeline and As You Like It at Yale School of Drama.

Following the The White Devil will be Mac Beth adapted and directed by Erica Schmidt from Shakespeare, playing its limited Off-Broadway engagement May 7th through June 2nd only, with Opening Night set for May 19th.

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