Santino Fontana, Miriam Silverman & More Kick Off Red Bull Theater's Anniversary Festival Monday

Red Bull Theater will kick off the 20th Anniversary Festival, an all-star series of workshops and readings of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, & more, celebrating twenty years of bringing rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences, with a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Performances begin Monday April 15th.

To purchase tickets and more information about all the events of 20th Anniversary Festival, from April 15th to May 14th, go to RedBullTheater.com

The 20th Anniversary Festival, will feature the NY premiere of How Shakespeare Saved My Life, an epic poem told by Jacob Ming-Trent with verse, rhyme, and song, on Monday April 15th (7:30pm), in person only performance . Jacob tells us how Shakespeare raised him, saved him and ultimately showed him that forgiveness and mercy could set him free. "America tried to take my life, a five-hundred-year-old white dude saved it."

Next up will be the in-person workshop of Shakespeare's Macbeth with Stephen Moyer (“True Blood”) in the title role and Tony & Drama Desk winner Miriam Silverman as Lady Macbeth, for two performances only. on  Saturday April 20th (7:30pm) and Sunday April 21st (2pm). One of the most malevolently attractive plays of all time, Macbeth is often held up as the greatest dramatic example of the fatal flaw of ambition. But what if ambition were not the driving force behind the actions of the Macbeths? Directed by Nathan Winkelstein, Macbeth will also feature Jason Bowen (Broadway: The Play That Goes Wrong; Off-Broadway: The Play That Goes Wrong; Long Day's Journey into Night - Audible, Native Son, Measure for Measure - The Acting Company; If Pretty Hurts Ugly Must be a Muhfucka - Playwrights Horizons, Crumbs from the Table of Joy - Keen Co);  Jason C. Brown (RBT: The Duchess of Malfi, The Revenger's Tragedy; The Bacchae, A Christmas Carol in Harlem - Classical Theatre of Harlem); Kristine Nielsen (Tony Award nominations - Gary: A Sequel to Titus Andronicus, Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike; Outer Critics Circle Award - Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike; Obie Award - Betty's Summer Vacation; Outer Critics Circle Award nomination: Why Torture Is Wrong and the People Who Love Them; Drama League Award nominations: Vanya and Sonia and Masha and Spike, Our Leading Lady, Why Torture Is Wrong And The People Who Love Them, HIR; RBT: Volpone); Jason O'Connell (Off-Broadway: Becomes A Woman - Mint Theater; Judgment Day - Park Avenue Armory; Pride and Prejudice - Primary Stages; Sense and Sensibility, The Seagull - Bedlam);  Olivia Reis (RBT: Coriolanus; Titus Andronicus;  “Only Murders In The Building”); Derek Smith (RBT: The White Devil, The School for Scandal, 'Tis Pity She's a Whore; Broadway: The Lion King, The Green Bird - Tony Award nomination); Zuzanna Szadkowski (Arcadia, Fall River Fishing, King Lear, The Crucible, Uncle Romeo Vanya Juliet - BEDLAM; Queens - LCT3); Raphael Nash Thompson (RBT: Volpone, The Witch of Edmonton, Edward II; most recently on Broadway in The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window); and Ayana Workman (Red Bull: Mac Beth; The Price of Thomas Scott - Mint, Juliet in NYSF's Romeo & Juliet).

Thursday, April 18th (7:30 PM) will offer “Person Place Thing,” a live in-person podcast recordings hosted by Randy Cohen with Santino Fontana.  Person Place Thing is an interview show based on this idea: people are particularly engaging when they speak not directly about themselves but about something they care about. Guests talk about one person, one place, and one thing that are important to them. The result?  Surprising stories from great talkers. Randy Cohen's first professional work was writing humor pieces, essays and stories for newspapers and magazines (The New Yorker, Harpers, the Atlantic, Young Love Comics). His first television work was writing for “Late Night with David Letterman” for which he won three Emmy awards. His fourth Emmy was for his work on Michael Moore's “TV Nation.” He received a fifth Emmy as a result of a clerical error, and he kept it. For twelve years he wrote “The Ethicist,” a weekly column for The New York Times Magazine. Currently he is the host of “Person Place Thing,” a public radio program. 

All performances take place at Sheen Center (18 Bleecker Street) For tickets and more information, visit redbulltheater.com/20th-anniversary-festival.

About Red Bull Theater

Red Bull Theater brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences, uniting a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the years of Puritan rule, 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 classics-shaking Red Bull Theater,” as Time Out NY has called it, 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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