Theater for a New Audience Kicks Off CELEBRATING CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE Talks

Theatre for a New Audience, Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director, will present four panel discussions entitled "Celebrating Christopher Marlowe" in conjunction with its epic production now on stage of Marlowe's 1587 Tamburlaine, Parts I and II, edited and directed by Olivier Award-winner Michael Boyd and starring John Douglas Thompson heading a cast of 19 performing 60 roles.

The panel discussions begin tonight, November 8, at 4:45pm with "Censorship and Sensitivities," featuring leaders in the American Islamic community and moderated by former New York Times "Ethicist" writer Randy Cohen. The second panel is "Why Tamburlaine - Now?" on Sunday, November 9, at 5:30pm. The third and fourth panels are "Playing Tamburlaine" with John Douglas Thompson on Sunday, December 7, after the 1:00pm matinee performance and "Marlowe in the 21st Century" on Monday, December 8 at 7:00pm. Locations are either Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place, or the nearby Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Avenue.

The panel discussions are free. No tickets are required, but seating is limited, and reservations are encouraged. Visit tfana.org/humanities to RSVP to these events, or call 212-229-2819 x10 for more information.

Mr. Horowitz observes, "Marlowe was an extraordinarily popular and subversive author who many think was assassinated for his views. Theatre for a New Audience is pleased to offer a free humanities series supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Humanities, of public discussions exploring some of what makes Marlowe so fascinating and challenging."

Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593) was one of the most influential and popular playwrights of the Elizabethan era. He was the first to demonstrate the muscular force of blank verse ("Marlowe's mighty line"), the first to recognize the resonance of exotic "outsider" characters, and the first to openly dramatize homoeroticism. He helped define a new, modern drama that influenced Shakespeare and others.

The son of a shoemaker, Marlowe was born two months before Shakespeare in Canterbury, old spiritual capital of England -- a place where public anxiety over religion had simmered ever since three compulsory changes in state religion were violently enforced between 1547 and 1558. At 16, Marlowe won a scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he earned a B.A. in 1584. While at Cambridge, he began working as a spy for Queen Elizabeth's secret service. Marlowe was probably a double agent and also arrested multiple times -- for murder, street-fighting, and counterfeiting. In 1593, when someone nailed a bloody sign to a church, signed Tamburlaine, the authorities went against Marlowe. Several days later, he was mysteriously killed in a barroom brawl -- stabbed above the eye by a man who worked for his patron, as others who worked for the secret service looked on. He was 29.

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"CELEBRATING CHRISTOPHER MARLOWE":

Censorship and Sensitivities
Tonight, November 8, 4:45pm
Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place

When it was first performed in 1587, Marlowe wrote that the character Tamburlaine burns the Qur'an. This was relatively uncontroversial for the London stage (burning the Christian Bible would have ensured arrest and silenced the play altogether). In the 21st century, though, burning the Qur'an could be seen as offensive. Randy Cohen explores with a panel from the theatre, Islamic, legal and scholarly communities whether Marlowe's burning of the Qur'an is a desecration, and, if so, should it be censored?

Randy Cohen, original writer, New York Times "The Ethicist," moderates.

Panelists: Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director, Theatre for a New Audience; Sadyia Khalique, Director of Operations, New York, Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR); Donna Lieberman, Executive Director, New York Civil Liberties Union; Richard C. McCoy, Chair, Theatre for a New Audience, Council of Scholars, Distinguished Professor of English, Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY.

TFANA Talk: Why Tamburlaine -- Now?
Sunday, November 9, 5:30pm
Mark Morris Dance Center, 3 Lafayette Avenue

Richard C. McCoy, Chair, Theatre for a New Audience, Council of Scholars, Distinguished Professor of English, Queens College and The Graduate Center, CUNY, moderates. Panelists are Michael Boyd, Tamburlaine director and editor and former Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company, and author and Professor James Shapiro, Larry Miller Professor of English, Columbia University.

Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine was a huge hit in its own day, but rarely performed today. Its last major performance in New York was 1956 on Broadway. This panel will discuss Tamburlaine's resonance for contemporary audiences, and why it should be staged now.

TFANA Talk: Playing Tamburlaine
Sunday, December 7, following the 1:00pm matinee (approximately 4:45pm)
Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place

Author and professor Stephen Greenblatt has written, "At the time of his death Marlowe was known not only as a notorious blasphemer but also as England's greatest playwright. His spectacularly violent two-part epic Tamburlaine, about the rise of a Scythian shepherd to become king of half the world, had revolutionized the Elizabethan Theatre... What happens again and again in Marlowe's plays is that the incantatory power of his verse releases a destructive energy that cannot be contained within any conventional boundaries."

Panelists: Gail Kern Paster, Director Emerita, Folger Shakespeare Library and Editor, Shakespeare Quarterly, speaks with actor John Douglas Thompson and Ayanna Thompson, Professor of English, George Washington University, about performing the role of Tamburlaine.

Marlowe in the 21st Century
Monday, December 8, 7:00pm
Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place

Tamburlaine's self-appointment as the all-conquering individualist who ultimately seeks to unseat even the gods, gives a disturbing resonance to Marlowe's play today. Ayanna Thompson, Professor of English, George Washington University and Gail Kern Paster, Director Emerita, Folger Shakespeare Library and Editor, Shakespeare Quarterly, discuss how Christopher Marlowe illuminates our world.

Previews began Saturday, November 1, for Christopher Marlowe's epic Tamburlaine, Parts I and II, with a company of 19 actors playing 60 roles in its first major New York production since Broadway, 1956. Tamburlaine opens Sunday, November 16, at 1:00pm at Theatre for a New Audience, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place and will be performed as one 3-hour play, plus a 30-minute intermission, through December 21.

Theatre for a New Audience's Humanities programs are supported in part by a permanent endowment established at the Theatre by a Challenge Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Celebrating 50 Years of Excellence, with leading matching gifts provided by Robert H. Arnow, Perry and Marty Granoff, John J. Kerr and Nora Wren Kerr, and Theodore C. Rogers. Any views, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in these programs do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Additional support for the Theatre's Humanities, Education, and Outreach programs also comes from The Elayne P. Bernstein Education Fund.

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