Red Bull Theater to Present Staged Reading of Aimé Césaire's A TEMPEST (UNE TEMPÊTE)

Red Bull Theater today announced a special event staged reading of celebrated poet and activist Aimé Césaire's A Tempest (Une Tempête), a striking adaptation of Shakespeare's celebrated Jacobean play through a post-colonial lens, translated from the French by Philip Crispin. A collaboration with the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF) and The Drama League, the event will be presented in-person with a simultaneous livestream.

In Césaire's A Tempest, the characters and plot are largely unchanged: Prospero conjures a violent storm to drive his enemy's ship ashore on the island on which he is exiled with his daughter. Césaire's island is located specifically in the Caribbean and Caliban and Ariel, depicted here as black slaves to Prospero, are centralized. Their opposing voices echo Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr. Written in the tumultuous 1960s, A Tempest confronts complex intersections of race, power, and anti-imperialism with intelligence, wit, and beauty.

A Tempest (Une Tempête) will take place LIVE in person on Monday February 28th at 7:30pm at FIAF Florence Gould Hall (55 East 59th Street) with simultaneous Livestream broadcast. Video-on-Demand will be available through Sunday March 6th until 11:59 PM EST. For tickets to the in person event, Livestream, Video-on-Demand, or more information, visit RedBullTheater.org.

This reading will be directed by Lanise Antoine Shelley, the Artistic Director of Chicago's House Theatre and the 2021-'22 Drama League Classical Directing Fellow.

Featured in the cast will be Jay O. Sanders (Bway: Girl from the North Country; Off-Bway: The Michaels, The Gabriels Plays, The Apple Family Plays - Public Theater) as Prospero and Isaiah Johnson as Caliban (Bway: The Color Purple, Side Show, Peter and the Starcatcher, The Merchant of Venice; George Washington in Hamilton National Tour); with Stephen DeRosa (Red Bull: The Alchemist, The Government Inspector; Broadway: Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, The Nance); Isabel Ellison (RBT debut); Kimberly Exum (Bway/National Tour: The Book of Mormon); Manoel Felciano (Red Bull: The Alchemist, The Changeling; Bway: To Kill a Mockingbird, Sweeney Todd - Tony® nomination); Enid Graham (Bway: Honour - Tony® nomination, Theatre World Award; M. Butterfly, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Fortune's Fool, Dinner at Eight, The Constant Wife; Off Bway: Coriolanus, King Lear - Public Theater; The Long Christmas Ride Home - Vineyard); Paul Niebanck (RBT: The Revenger's Tragedy, The Changeling, The Spanish Tragedy; LCT/Bway: In the Next Room (or the vibrator play); Off-Bway: Mint Theater: A Picture of Autumn; Keen Co: Boy, A Walk in the Woods); Derek Smith (RBT: The White Devil, The School for Scandal, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore; Bway: The Lion King, The Green Bird - Tony Award® nomination); Anthony Venturini (RBT debut); and more to be announced.

A Tempest marks Red Bull Theater's return to its in-person Revelation Readings, an ongoing OBIE Award-winning series that offers audiences the unique opportunity to experience rarely produced classic plays performed by the finest actors working today. This will be the first-time that the organization has livestreamed an in-person event.

For more information about A Tempest, or any of Red Bull Theater's programs, visit www.redbulltheater.com.

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