Red Bull Theater to Present SHAKESPEARE AND THE JACOBEANS ON FILM in January

Red Bull Theater today announced a new three-part collaboration with the Shakespeare Society exploring Shakespeare and the Jacobeans on Film. The series includes a Shakespeare Society major member event (open to the public) and two film screenings. All three events will be held at the SVA Theatre (333 West 23rd Street, between 8th and 9th Avenues) part of the School of Visual Arts. For more information and tickets, visit RedBullTheater.com

"Our upcoming production of John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore is still a few months away, but we've partnered with our friends at The Shakespeare Society for three exciting events to whet your appetite for the crown jewel of Jacobean drama. The evening will focus on the relationship between Shakespeare and his darker, bloodier-minded Jacobean successors, in particular the great poet and playwright John Ford. Using film clips from Franco Zeffirelli's Romeo and Juliet, Orson Welles's Othello and a rarely seen BBC adaptation of 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, directed by Roland Joffé, we will reveal how Ford adapted and reworked Shakespeare's themes of violence, jealousy and desire in his own sinister, strangely hypnotic key," said Artistic Director Jesse Berger.

This series will also offer the rare opportunity to see these complete films on the big screen in their cinematic glory:

Italian director Franco Zeffirelli's Academy Award-winning Romeo and Juliet (1968) is considered the definitive screen version of Shakespeare's classic love story.In the Italian city of Verona, the Montague and the Capulet families are perpetually feuding. When Romeo (Leonard Whiting), a handsome young Montague, disregards convention by attending a Capulet ball, he falls in love with the beautiful Juliet (Olivia Hussey), a Capulet. After a brief courtship, the two elope, creating even greater tension between their families.

In the 1970s Roland Joffé (best known for the Academy Award-winning films The Killing Fields and The Mission) directed some of television's finest social-realist films. He applied the same approach to this truly remarkable version of John Ford's drama 'Tis Pity She's a Whore (1981). A tale of incestuous passion written around 1629 is translated to the early Victorian period and turned to critique the sexual and economic hypocrisies of the 19th century.

In additon to 'Tis Pity She's a Whore, Red Bull's Eleventh Season will feature an all new season of their acclaimed Revelation Readings that includes Dekker & Middleton's The Honest Whore, Ford's Perkin Warbeck andLove's Sacrifice, Baillie's De Montfort, Ludlam's Camille, Euripides'sHippolytos, Middleton's A Chaste Maid in Cheapside, Calderón's Life Is a Dream, Ibsen's The Wild Duck (a new version by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Auburn), Beaumont & Fletcher's The Maid's Tragedy, Marston's The Dutch Courtesan, Sheridan's The School For Scandal, with casts that include Olympia Dukakis, Hamish Linklater, Lily Rabe, Charlayne Woodard, Brian D'Arcy James, Rocco Sisto, Robert Cuccioli, Arnie Burton, Tom Hewitt, Jennifer Ikeda, Christopher Innvar, Sam Tsoutsouvas, Rebecca Brooksher, Jeremy Shamos, Harris Yulin, Nick Westrate, Carson Elrod, and Jeanine Serralles, among others.

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. This season's Revelation Reading series zooms in on the uncontrolled passions of women in extremis, the men who drive them there ... and vice versa. Revelation Readings began September 29th with Thomas Dekker's The Honest Whore. Subsequent Readings include:

· December 29 - Thomas Middleton's A Chaste Maid In Cheapside - with Sam Tsoutsouvas and Charlayne Woodard at Lucille Lortel Theatre

· January 12 - Charles Ludlam's Camille - Directed by Everett Quinton with Charles Busch and Arnie Burton at Lucille Lortel Theatre *The first of two collaborations with Busch & Quinton, building on Red Bull's Ridiculous Season last year.

· February 2 - Calderón's Life Is A Dream - Directed by Matthew Rauch with Steven Boyer and Nick Westrate at Lucille Lortel Theatre.

· February 16 - Euripides' Hippolytos - by contemporary poet Anne Carson; Directed by Ted Pappas with Olympia Dukakis at a venue to be announced

· March 2 - John Marston's The Dutch Courtesan - Directed by Michael Sexton with Hamish Linklater and Lily Rabe at Lucille Lortel Theatre

· March 9 - John Ford's Perkin Warbeck - Directed by Carl Forsman with Brian D'Arcy James at Lucille Lortel Theatre

· May 4 - John Ford's Love's Sacrifice - Directed by Craig Baldwin with Tina Benko and Christopher Innvar at Playwrights Horizons ?

· June 29 - Richard Brinsley Sheridan's The School for Scandal - with Charles Busch and Everett Quinton at Lucille Lortel Theatre *The second of two Ridiculous collaborations with Busch and Quinton this season.

Tickets for Revelation Readings are $42 with Premium Seats available at $64. Become a Member and get them for only $25! (For complete list of Readings and updated cast information, visit www.redbulltheater.com). All artists subject to change.

This season's mainstage production, John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's A Whore, directed by Berger, will begin a limited engagement April 12th at The Duke on 42nd Street. Opening Night is set for Sunday April 26th. What if Romeo and Juliet were brother and sister? Find out in this daring and provocative thriller. Red Bull Theater returns to its roots with the bloodiest and sexiest of all Jacobean tragedies. This heart-pounding tale of love, lust and hypocrisy is a deliciously perverse romantic tragedy. Siblings Annabella and Giovanni fall into an incestuous affair with a brutal velocity that sets Renaissance Parma aflame with its passionate force. Defiant in their desires to the bloody end, these lovers take "star-crossed" into a whole new galaxy. This crown jewel of Jacobean drama has scandalized and enthralled audiences for four centuries with its singular journey through the fires of desire. In its first major Off-Broadway production in 20 years, this rollicking ride will have your moral compass spinning wildly. Single tickets for 'Tis Pity She's a Whore go on sale January 5th for $62, with Premium Seats available at $84 at www.redbulltheater.com or at (212) 352-3101.

Red Bull Theater, hailed as "the city's gutsiest classical theater" byTime Out New York, is the not-profit Off-Broadway theater company specializing in plays of heightened language. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, Red Bull Theater embraces the imagination of theatergoers through intimate, imaginative productions of great classic stories from all eras and cultures. Red Bull Theater's eleventh season builds upon their unique history and mission to present vital and imaginative renderings of heightened language plays from all eras and cultures as they launch a second decade of sharing great classic stories.

Acclaimed as "a dynamic producer of classic plays" by The New York Times, Red Bull Theater has previously staged productions of Shakespeare's Pericles, the anonymous Revenger's Tragedy, Marlowe'sEdward the Second, Middleton's Women Beware Women, Webster's The Duchess of Malfi, the Off-Broadway premiere of Dekker, Ford & Rowley's The Witch of Edmonton, a major Off-Broadway revival of Jean Genet's The Maids, a new version of Strindberg's The Dance of Death by Mike Poulton, rare New York revivals of Loot and The Mystery of Irma Vep, and the first Off-Broadway revival of Volpone in over 50 years. The company's work has been hailed over the years as "the most exciting classical theater in New York" (Time Out New York), "Dynamite! (The New York Times), "the city's gutsiest classical theater" (Time Out New York), "Triumphant" (Associated Press), and "Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years" (Variety), among others.

Red Bull Theater's work has been recognized with multiple Callaway, Drama League, Lucille Lortel, and OBIE Award nominations and Awards. The company has staged over 125 readings through its ongoing OBIE Award-winning Revelation Readings, named by the Village Voice "Best Play Reading Series," and has developed new plays of heightened language and classical adaptations through its In-the-Raw workshop series. Red Bull Theater reaches out to NYC students of all ages through "Direct Address" education programs teaching Shakespeare in middle schools and student matinees. Post-play "Bull Session" discussions with scholars following selected Sundaymatinees and Readings are free and open to the public.

Red Bull Theater offers Master Classes, Classical Acting Intensives and Workshops throughout the year and taught by top working professionals including Kathleen Chalfant, John Douglas Thompson, Olympia Dukakis, Heidi Griffiths, and Patrick Page, Red Bull Theater's intensives and workshops cover a variety of disciplines, including auditioning, text, voice, movement, clowning, stage combat, and acting Shakespeare. Classes are open to adults at all levels of training or experience. They range from one to six days with limited class sizes to allow one-on-one attention. You can enroll in any combination of classes, or take the whole series for a yearlong master training experience. Visit www.redbulltheater.com for complete details.

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