The Resident Acting Co Announces Casting For A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

The Resident Acting Company, formed four years ago by the actors of the Pearl Theater Company, has announced casting for a script in hand performance of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream on September 19th at The Players.

Peter Francis James (Funny Girl, Winter's Tale at The Pearl) will double as Theseus/Oberon, and Shana Farr (Blithe Spirit, Feinsteins/54 Below) will double as Hippolyta/ Titania. RAC company member Chris Mixon (How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Utah Shakespeare Festival) will play Bottom, and Carine Montbertrand (The Acting Company, The Alley Theatre, Soho Rep) will play Puck and Egeus. Also in the cast are Claire Saunders (Annie Get Your Gun, Mint Theatre) as Hermia, Luis A. Quintero (Alley Theatre, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival) as Lysander, Louis Sallan (New York Theatre Workshop, Blue Bloods, The Blacklist) as Demetrius, and Ayana Workman (Shakespeare Theatre, RedBull Theatre Co) as Helena. The so called "Mechanicals" will be played by Duane Boutte (Parade, Carousel, Sex And The City) as Flute, Company Member Dan Daily (The Pearl, The Wolf Of Wall Street, Seabiscuit) as Snout, Andy Paterson (La Mama, Yale Rep, The Acting Company) as Snug, and Todd Conner (Only Murders in the Building, The Deuce, Dallas Theater Center) as Starveling.

Artistic Director Bradford Cover is directing. Cover says, "We have assembled a true motley crew of fantastic talent for this performance. Even though it is a staged reading, we are going to have a lot of fun."

Although The Players is a private club, it will be open to ticket buyers for all these events. The club was founded by Edwin Booth, with the help of Mark Twain and others, in 1888, as a place for actors and lovers of the arts to congregate. To Purchase Tickets Go To: racnyc.org

The Resident Acting Company is made up of an ensemble of highly experienced actors who have been working together for many years. They perform the great classic plays because we know that they speak to us and address the issues that we as a society are facing today. The company believes in mining the language of these plays fully, and performing them in a way that is clear, exciting, innovative, and moving. Because of their many years of working together, they possess a powerful and immediate ability to create. They create work based upon the idea that theatre is at its best when the creators truly collaborate and build on each other's ideas. They not only find innovative ways to work together, but re-examine traditional forms, challenging conventional ideas about gender, championing the inclusion of all ethnicities on its stages, and in its audience, and ultimately penetrating and inhabiting the heart of the plays they perform, with the intention of changing the way people think about themselves and the world.

SOME HISTORY

The Pearl Theatre Company was founded in 1984 by Shepard Sobel. Performing classical repertory with a resident acting company, its troupe of actors trained together and performed show after show together, forming a common theatrical aesthetic and artistic bond. The Pearl began in a storefront in Chelsea and moved to Theatre 80 St. Marks, City Center and finally, to a new theater at 555 West 42nd Street. Operating for 33 years as an Off-Broadway troupe, it earned Drama League awards, a Drama Desk for "nurturing a stalwart company of actors..." and several Obies. When the company closed after 33 seasons in 2017, members of its acting company banded together to continue The Pearl's artistic tradition of addressing the big classics with a resident ensemble - and they are now The Resident Acting Company.

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