Gingold Theatrical Group's PROJECT SHAW Announces 15th Season

Gingold Theatrical Group (David Staller, Artistic Director) have announced the 15th Season of Project Shaw, a special series of evenings of plays that embrace human rights and free speech. All of GTG's programming, inspired by the works of George Bernard Shaw, are designed to provoke peaceful discussion and activism. This series is presented monthly at Symphony Space's Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre (2537 Broadway at 95th Street).

In addition to Project Shaw, this fall GTG will return to Theatre Row with the annual mainstage production. This season will offer Shaw's high-action swashbuckling comedy The Devil's Disciple, based on actual events during the American Revolution. This limited Off-Broadway engagement will run in October and November at Theatre Row's Stage One. Cast & design team will be announced this Spring.

"All of us at Gingold are delighted, if a bit amazed, that it's been fifteen years! As we're heading into another election year all of our programming is about art as activism, stepping up and taking responsibility, and finding joy in being a contributive part of our community. Besides our usual Shaw plays, we're including some other playwrights our audiences are sure to enjoy! With The Devil's Disciple (our full production for 2020), Shaw's rollicking comedy takes us back to an actual turning point of the American Revolution as a reminder of the power of facing our fears and standing up to tyranny," said Mr. Staller.

The 15th season, the season of "Clarity Through Art," will begin January 20th with Shaw's sparkling comedy Major Barbara, directed by Jenn Thompson (cast will be announced shortly), followed by What Every Woman Knows by J.M. Barrie, directed by Kathy MacGowan on February 24th, Shaw Songs @ The Players! directed by Gary John La Rosa on April 20 (PLEASE NOTE: this event will take place at The Players, 16 Gramercy Park South), Shaw's Saint Joan, directed by Vivienne Benesch on May 18th, He and She by Rachel Crothers on June 22nd directed by Meredith McDonough, Shaw's The Apple Cart on July 20th, A Scintillating Shaw Talk on October 26th, The Torch Bearers by George Kelly, directed by Charlotte Moore on November 2rd, and Shaw's Androcles and the Lion, directed by Pamela Hunt, ending the 2020 season on December 14th.

With Major Barbara, one of Shaw's most popular and controversial plays, we'll start our 2020 with one of Shaw's most often requested works. Written as a drawing-room comedy, there are few if any hot-topics Shaw doesn't tackle. In this dazzling work, the title character is one of the wealthiest heiresses in the world, but has chosen a life a service in the Salvation Army. Her father, whom she barely knows, comes back into the family's world and everyone's life is irrevocably changed forever. Shaw creates some of his most memorable characters in this play! We're reminded of the vital importance of taking an active part in our own life and never to take anything for granted.

All the plays in Project Shaw (except Shaw Songs @ The Players) will be presented in a concert-reading format at the Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theater at Symphony Space, 2537 Broadway at 95th Street. Tickets are $40 and are available by calling 212-864-5400 or online at www.symphonyspace.org. Special reserved VIP seating available for $55 by contacting the Gingold office 212-355-7823 or info@gingoldgroup.org. Symphony Space's Leonard Nimoy Thalia Theatre space is completely accessible. Infra-red hearing devices are also available.

On April 20th, Project Shaw will present a special evening, Shaw Songs @ The Players, a special treat, an evening of music that Shaw enjoyed, including popular music of his time, works by Gilbert & Sullivan, and more! For this very special event we'll be returning to the original home of Project Shaw, the beautiful Players Club at 16 Gramercy Park South. Cast and ticket information will be announced shortly.

Now celebrating its 15th year, Gingold Theatrical Group's Project Shaw made history in December 2009 as the first company ever to present performances of every one of Shaw's 65 plays (including full-length works, one-acts and sketches). They are now also including plays by writers who share Shaw's activist socio-political views embracing human rights and free speech, including work by Chekhov, Ibsen, Elizabeth Robins, Rachel Crothers, Pinero, Wilde, Barrie, and Harley Granville-Barker. GTG's other programs include its new play development and educational programs. For those interested in lively off-site discourses, each Project Shaw event is followed by a talk-back with cast members. GTG's David Staller and Stephen Brown-Fried also host a monthly Shaw Club discussion group.

GTG recently completed a highly acclaimed Off-Broadway engagement of Shaw's beloved almost historical comedy Caesar and Cleopatra at Theatre Row, hailed as a New York Times Critic's Pick: "In George Bernard Shaw's Caesar & Cleopatra, adapted and directed by David Staller in a briskly entertaining, winningly down-to-earth revival for Gingold Theatrical Group, the young queen of Egypt is charming in her naïveté. Teresa Avia Lim digs into this role with a vengeance, delivering a smartly calibrated comic performance. Robert Cuccioli makes an appealingly unaffected Caesar. This sensitively streamlined production, at Theater Row, is a friendly affair, thanks partly to the narration added by Mr. Staller and delivered with subdued majesty by Brenda Braxton." (Laura Collins-Hughes, New York Times). Terry Teachout in The Wall Street Journal declared "As always, Mr. Staller, who knows more about Shaw than anyone else in America, gets it right, situating the action of the play in a modern-day archaeological dig and keeping the costumes simple and the diction crisp and clear. Mr. Cuccioli tosses off his epigrams ('The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it') with a light, dry touch, while Ms. Lim, who is a terrific find, starts off as Lolita, gradually turning under Caesar's tutelage into a grown woman who has tasted the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and isn't sure she likes it. ...all the more reason to cheer David Staller's splendid new adaptation of one of Shaw's most glittering, least Shakespearean conversation pieces. This is the third of Mr. Staller's small-scale Gingold Theatrical Group productions to be presented off Broadway at Theatre Row. It follows in the wake of his all-but-flawless 2018 Heartbreak House, an uncommonly hard act to follow, and leaves nothing whatsoever to be desired. May his Shaw stagings become annual events!

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