Red Bull Theater Continues Its 20th Anniversary Festival With OR, WHAT SHE WILL By Liz Duffy Adams

Red Bull Theater has announced details for the next presentation of its 20th Anniversary Festival: OR, WHAT SHE WILL by Liz Duffy Adams, directed by Gaye Taylor Upchurch.

The cast features b (for RBT: Kit Marlowe;  The Welkin - Atlantic Theater Company; Toros - Second Stage Theatre; american (tele)visions - New York Theatre Workshop; Work Hard Have Fun Make History, Bodies; They Ritual - Clubbed Thumb; Seven Deadly Sins - Tectonic Theater Project); Santino Fontana (RBT: Your Own Thing; Tootsie — Tony Award, Drama Desk Award, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League nomination; Rodgers + Hammerstein's Cinderella — Tony, Outer Critics Circle nominations;  Sons of the Prophet — Lortel Award; Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle Award, Drama League Award nominations; The Importance of Being Earnest — Actors Equity/Clarence Derwent Award; Brighton Beach Memoirs — Drama Desk Award, most recently:  I Can Get It for You Wholesale); and Rebecca Hall (Broadway: Machinal - Roundabout: Theatre World Award, Outer Critics Circle nomination; Off-Broadway: The Cherry Orchard - Brooklyn Academy of Music: Drama Desk nomination; Animal - Atlantic Theater: Drama League nomination; Film: Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona - Golden Globe nomination, Ron Howard's Frost/Nixon, The Town with Ben Affleck).

Sprung from debtors' prison after a disastrous overseas mission, Aphra is desperate to get out of the spy trade. She has a shot at a production at one of only two London companies, if she can only finish her play by morning despite interruptions from sudden new love, actress Nell Gwynne; complicated royal love, King Charles II; and very dodgy ex-love, double-agent William Scott—who may be in on a plot to murder the king in the morning. Can Aphra Behn – poet, spy, and soon to be  first professional female playwright — save Charles' life, win William a pardon, resist Nell's charms, and launch her career, all in one night?

“When I first heard about Liz Duffy Adams's play about Aphra Behn, I knew it was destined to arrive at Red Bull Theater someday – I'm so glad that day has finally come! With this terrific cast, insightful script, under GT's delightful direction, we're all in for a special treat!” said founder and artistic director Jesse Berger.

The Neo-Restoration comedy Or, premiered Off Broadway at WP Theater in 2009; Charles Isherwood wrote in The New York Times that Adams's “language has a natural period flavor and a formidable wit; her characters possess the spark of fully animated spirits; and she weaves into her story both biographical detail and cultural context with grace.”

The play takes place mostly during one night in the life of Aphra Behn, the poet, spy, and soon to be first professional female playwright, and is inspired by a cyclical view of history: against a background of drawn-out wars and a fervent counter-culture of free love, gender fluidity, political optimism and pastoral lyricism, the 1660s resonate with the 1960s and with the late 20-aughts when it was written, when the Obama campaign offered a gleam of new possibilities after the traumas and wars of the Bush years. “Hope prevails, in great waves of laughter. The darker strains beyond Behn's writing chamber only reinforce the dedication to change. After the recent elections, we can all use a play like this.” (Robert Hurwitt, San Francisco Chronicle).

This in-person only event will take place Monday, May 6th  at 7:30pm  at Sheen Center Shiner Theatre. PLEASE NOTE: this performance is SOLD OUT! Waitlist is Available.

About the Artists

Liz Duffy Adams is an American playwright with dual Irish citizenship who lives in Alphabet City NYC and Western Massachusetts. She could be described variously as a language playwright––a lover of heightened theatrical language––and a landscape playwright, for whom place is an early spark. Her early work came out of her experimental theater experience and expressed itself in science fiction plays, post- or mid-apocalypse; more recently she has been writing historical plays, in both cases finding it interesting to talk about our present moment through the oblique lens of the past or future. All of her work may be said to be obsessed with how people recreate civilization after catastrophe, whether macro or micro, and despite how serious that sounds her natural métier is comedy. “An artist of playful and highly literate imagination, radical instincts, and sardonic but generous humor” (Robert Avila, San Francisco Bay Guardian), her many other plays include Born With Teeth ––Alley Theater premiere which transferred to the Guthrie; Edgerton Foundation New Play Award––and Dog Act, Glickman Award for Best New Play. 

Gaye Taylor Upchurch is a freelance director with a background in dance. She has directed several world premieres including Clare Lizzimore's Animal (Atlantic Theater & Studio Theatre); Lauren Gunderson's Half-Life of Marie Curie (Audible at Minetta Lane); Anna Ziegler's The Last Match (Old Globe); Melissa Ross's Of Good Stock (South Coast Rep); Laura Marks's Bethany (Women's Project). Other Off-Broadway: Simon Stephens's Harper Regan and Bluebird (Atlantic); Lucy Thurber's Stay (Rattlestick). Regional work includes: Member of the Wedding (Williamstown); Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival: An Iliad (toured to West Point) and As You Like It (International Falstaff Award for Best Production, toured to The Folger in DC). GT has developed new work at NY Stage & Film, NYTW, The Vineyard, EST, P73, New Dramatists, and Space on Ryder Farm and is a Drama League alum and a graduate of University of NC School of the Arts.

About Red Bull Theater

Red Bull Theater is New York City's destination for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time as well as new works that are in conversation with the classics. A home for artists, scholars and students, With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, Red Bull Theater strives to make work that is accessible, diverse, and welcoming to all theater-goers while keeping a rich and vital tradition thriving.  Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and plays of heightened language to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique collective experiences, and in the limitless capacity of classical theater to illuminate the events of our times.

Red Bull Theater is New York City's home for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, the company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics. A home for artists, scholars, and students, Red Bull Theater delights and engages the intellect and imagination of audiences, and strives to make its work accessible, diverse, and welcoming to all. We value and practice inclusiveness, equity, and diversity in all of our activities, and are committed to antiracist action. Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and plays of heightened language to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique, collective experiences, and in the timeless capacity of classical theater to illuminate the events of our times. Variety agreed, hailing Red Bull's work as: “Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years.” 

Since its debut in 2003 with a production of Shakespeare's Pericles starring Daniel Breaker, Red Bull Theater has served adventurous theatergoers with Off-Broadway productions, Revelation Readings, and the annual Short New Play Festival. The company also offers outreach programs including Shakespeare in Schools bringing professional actors and teaching artists into public school classrooms; Bull Sessions, free post-play discussions with top scholars; and Classical Acting Intensives led by veteran theater professionals. During the pandemic, Red Bull created several new and ongoing programs to serve audiences and artists with our mission: the Red Bull Theater Podcast, Online Readings, Seminars, and more.

The Red Bull Theater has produced 24 Off-Broadway productions and over 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists and providing quality artistic programming to an audience of over 65,000. The company's unique programming has received ongoing critical acclaim and has been recognized with Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Off-Broadway Alliance, and OBIE nominations and Awards.

For more information about the 20th Anniversary Festival, or any of Red Bull Theater's programs, visit www.redbulltheater.com.

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