An excuse to raise a glass

As if you needed a reason to drink, the Bard's 450th birthday is being toasted all around town.

The New York Shakespeare Exchange (NYSX) originated the beer and performance festivities, aka ShakesBEER, along with The Sonnet Project, as a way to infuse our culture with the classical. They want to bring Shakespeare alive to a modern audience.  

ShakesBEER is a three hour pub crawl, with scenes from the Shakespearean repertoire breaking out at each location. October's ShakesBEER features scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream; Henry IV, Part 2; Romeo & Juliet; and Twelfth Night. The featured actors, who will be cheek by jowl with you, include Harry Barandes, Chris Corporandy, Phil Mutz, Sarah Nedwek, Katherine Puma, Colin Ryan, and Katelin Wilcox.

There are so many things you could debate after enjoying your ShakesBEER outing: Was William Shakespeare the Neil Simon, Arthur Kopit, Arthur Laurents, Eugene O'Neill and Arthur Miller rolled into one of his generation? Has any contemporary playwright come along to rival his efficacy in conveying the human condition? Did Marlowe write Shakespeare? Why isn't Tamberlaine performed more often? Is Lear or Hamlet WS's most iconic hero? Are his comedies funnier than The Big Bang Theory?

Book in advance for ShakesBEER. A schedule of the October outings can be found here: http://shakespeareexchange.org/content/shakesbeer-2014. 

Looking forward; dP dances R&J

To be young and in love against the wishes of family and friends is a timeless and eminently romantic tale. Long before William Shakespeare turned Juliet and Romeo into household names, stories of the star-crossed pair were lore. 

Photo by Eduardo Patino.

In celebration of Shakespeare's 450th birthday and for its 25th anniversary, Dances Patrelle (dP) performs "Romeo & Juliet," featuring Francis Patrelle's choreography, based on Shakespeare's play and Prokofiev's score. 

Each year, dP presents two seasons in New York City-- the holiday production of FP's "The Yorkville Nutcracker," and a spring repertory season featuring world premieres and favorites from FP's body of danceworks. For this year's offering, dP will be at Hunter College's Kaye Playhouse from September 11-14. 

The roles of Romeo and Juliet will be played by Alexander Castillo, a Bayside, NY native, who at 13 performed in Patrelle's "The Yorkville Nutcracker," now dancing on the West Coast, and Chloé Sherman, also originally a New Yorker featured in the "The Yorkville Nutcracker," as a student, who is now in the Los Angeles Ballet company.   FP has wrought a wide range of styles in his repertory, from the strictly classical to the contemporary with stops at the American Songbook along the way, always finding the drama in the dance. His "Romeo & Juliet" celebrates the soulful tragedy in the best classicist form.

In 2013, dP was named the resident ballet company of the Kaatsbaan International Dance Center in Tivoli, NY. 

For more information, visit www.dancespatrelle.org.

Shakespeare At The Bar

It has come to our attention that there are two theatrical companies hard at drink to bring you Shakespeare under the influence.

By W.J. Morgan & Co. Lith. of Cleveland, Ohio.
[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

The New York Shakespeare Exchange has created ShakesBeer, a crawl-cum-performance.

In the meantime, the troupe Three Day Hangover has launced DrunkShakespeare.

The former gathers on on April 12, May 31, June 7, August 9 & 16, October 4 & 11 and December 6 at 2:30pm for three hours of beer and Bard at four bars.

Drunk Shakespeare opens in its home at Quinn's Bar & Grill in midtown for drinking and tragedies on March 26th.

For tickets and information about Drunk Shakespeare, go to http://www.drunkshakespeare.com/calendar/

Information about the upcoming crawls and tickets for ShakesBeer can be found at http://shakespeareexchange.org/content/shakesbeer-2014.

ShakesBeer

Around town

Thomas F. Flynn recounts his
esperiences on September 11th
in the new play based on his book of
the same name. At BMCC Tribeca
Performing Arts Center.

1. Raise a glass to the Bard 

2. King Lear for "A New Audience"

3. A noteworthy new venue takes shape at WTC

4. Remembering the day the Towers fell

5.  What would Sartre do?

6. Paul Taylor, Dancemaker

7. Project Shaw
8. Grifting, game theory and comics

Shakespeare and beer....
New York Shakespeare Exchange has come up with another brilliant way to promote the Bard of Avon: The first ShakesBEER of 2014 will kick off in March, with two "Stone Street" crawls scheduled for Saturday, March 1 and Saturday, March 8 with additional Shakespearean bar crawls scheduled throughout the year-- 10 in all.

At each pub, the actors, cheek by jowl with the audience, break out a scene from one of the Bard's works. The ShakesBEERean acting company includes many a Shakespeare hand from the city, NYSX past performances, and from around the country.

In case you need a remindeer, NYSX recently held The Sonnet Project as a tribute to William Shakespeare, and a way to encourage appreciation of his work in a modern context.

For tickets and information, visit www.shakespeareexchange.org/content/shakesbeer-2014

Kings in their dotage
For fans of "King Lear," there can't be too many productions of the great Shakespearean tragedy. There's another one in Brooklyn this spring, following Frank Langella's at BAM. This one features Michael Pennington, two-time Olivier Award nominee, an artist of international stature and one of England’s greatest classical actors, in the title role in William Shakespeare's tragedy. Mr. Pennington leads a company of 22 actors. This is the second production in Theatre for a New Audience's inaugural season, which kicked off with "Midsummer Night's Dream," at its first permanent home, the new Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place in Brooklyn, directed by Arin Arbus. "King Lear" begins previews March 14 for an opening March 27 and a run through May 4.

Find out more by visiting http://www.tfana.org/

The PAC at WTC
A new and noteable venue is emerging at the World Trade Center with the appointment of a core team to lead the The Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center (PAC.) David Lan, Artistic Director of London's Young Vic, has been appointed as Consulting Artistic Director alongside Lucy Sexton as Associate Artistic Director. Andy Hayles, Managing Partner of innovative theater consultancy Charcoalblue, will be the theater design consultant. Film director Stephen Daldry has joined the PAC’s Board of Directors.

The artistic team is collaborating with the PAC’s staff, board and numerous consultants to create a global center that will produce and present new work, in multiple disciplines. All of this will take place in an adaptable venue with unprecedented digital connectivity.

Where were you on 9/11?
Thomas F. Flynn jumped on his bicycle outside his Greenwich Village home and followed the first plane downtown. There he became not a witness and reporter, but a participant, caught up in surviving the tragedy that rocked New York a little over a dozen years ago. In "Bikeman,"  Flynn, a veteran journalist, and an award winning writer and producer for the CBS Evening News with Dan Rather, recounts his experiences on 9/11.  Flynn was there at the fall of the south tower. "Bikeman," based on Flynn's book, is  directed by Michael Bush and features Robert Cuccioli, Irungu Mutu, Angela Pierce, Elizabeth Ramos, and Rich Topol.

"Bikeman" began performances on January 26th and is set for an opening on February 18th at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center, 199 Chambers Street.
For information, go to www.Bikeman911.com.  

"Hell is other people."-- Sartre
Can an existential attitude help us cope? Or might it drive us to solitude?  Find out when the Pearl Theatre presents Jean-Paul Sartre's "No Exit," from February 25th through March 30th. Linda Ames Key directs this adaptation from the French by Paul Bowles.

To find out more, please visit http://www.pearltheatre.org/1314/noexit/

Fill your March with dance. 
Paul Taylor is still turning out modern dance classics with attitude, verve and abandon. Beginning in mid March, his company, PTDC begins its diamond anniversary season at Lincoln Center, with the sponsorship of Tiffany's for its Spring gala. The repertory includes two newly minted pieces, so look for Marathon Cadenzas and American Dreamer on your dance card.

For a performance schedule and tickets, please visit www.ptdc.org.

And another thing....
Check out the Gingold Theatrical Group's "Project Shaw" at Symphony Space. Each production is one Monday night only, with "The Philanderer" coming up on February 24th.

For more information and tickets, go to Project Shaw.

Cons are a family affair in "Fast Company"

 www.carlaching.com

Blue (Stephanie Hsu) is the daughter who is excluded from the family business of grifting and sent off to college. There she discovers that you can run a con using advanced mathematical theory.

Carla Ching's new comedy "Fast Company," under the direction of Robert Ross Parker, begins previews March 12th for a run through April 6th at the Ensemble Studio Theatre.


For tickets for "Fast Company," please visit Ovation Tix.

In the parks and public spaces... especially for you

"Burrow" by The Bardos Ballet Theater takes to the indoors to avoid rain falling.

Time does not diminish his popularity, nor our curiosity about William Shakespeare, who turns 450 on April 23, 2014. His talent is timeless, and oft feted.

From Wikipedia

In celebration of the “Bard of Avon” on his upcoming birthday, Ross Williams’ New York Shakespeare Exchange initiated a year-long Sonnet Project, in which all 154 sonnets will be filmed at various locations around New York City.  The invitation only launch party for the Sonnet Project at the Museum of the Moving Image on May 20^th, will feature Tony-winner Cady Huffman. She will read a sonnet and joins actors Lynn Cohen, Austin Pendleton, Michael Urie, and Joanna Gleason, among others, all of whom also appear in an upcoming sonnet film.

The goal is for the films to reach an audience of 1,000,000, with each short film released on the website www.SonnetProjectNYC.com. Sites for the films include courthouses, and parks, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Queens Unisphere, Chelsea Piers, and the Bronx. There is now an app for Android mobile devices available at Google Play and a mobile app available for iPhone and iPad at the Apple App Store, so you can catch these short films anytime.



Here's a "Burrow" thank you from the Bardos Ballet's outdoor [and sometimes forced-by-weather indoor] performances in late May:

Also happening in public spaces and the parks are the Bardos Ballet Theater’s free dance performances. Billed as “Burrow,” the dances by choreographer Cynthia Anne Stanley and architect Maria Sieira will pop up as “sneak attacks” in sites around town. In “Burrow,” twelve women construct and deconstruct dwellings, as they keep the homefires buring during WWII.

“Burrow” will be at Foley Square Fountain on May 19^th at 7pm, on the 24^th at Fort Greene Park Steps. Two hush-hush appearances on June 2^nd will be in Manhattan at 11am and then somewhere in Brooklyn in the early evening. Picnics are welcome, but only friends of the Bardos Ballet will get exact directions to participate in these stealth events. 

The Bardos Ballet has made contingency plans for rain outs. So if they can't perform at Fort Greene Park, for instance:

They'll head indoors to the Martha Graham Studios. Stay in touch with The Bardos Ballet Theater so you can be there.

"In Acting Shakespeare"-- Tales From A Life

James Da Vita in a photo by Jacob J. Goldberg from "In Acting Shakespeare."

For those of us smitten with it, the theater is an uplifting and enriching experience.

James Da Vita's " In Acting Shakespeare," at The Pearl Theatre through February 3rd, stands on the shoulders of Sir Ian McKellan, on whose one man show his own is based, and Shakespeare, whose body of work inspired Da Vita to "a life in the theater."*

"And that , I think," Da Vita says, "was Shakespeare's true gift. He wrote us. He includes all of us in the question of what it is to be human." 
 
Da Vita, an undeniably smart man, wisely opens with Shakespeare's great villain Richard III. Contorting his boy into the deformed figure of the would-be King, Da Vita recites his honeyed and poisonous lines with a clarity and deep understanding. James Da Vita knows his Shakespeare!

James Da Vita in "In Acting Sharkespeare" in a photo by Jacob J. Goldberg.

In fact, the excerpts he plays out from the Bard's work, are the most entertaining sections of his memoire in tribute to his profession.Da Vita is a savvy theatrical technician.

Photo by Jacob J. Goldberg

 

Once a fisherman, the handsome and charismatic Da Vita went from gutting fish to hoisting petards. and writing plays and novels. He is now also the literary manager, and a core member, of American Players Theater in Wisconsin.

Shakespeare's legacy is of course undeniable and it apparently includes James Da Vita. His stage is  peopled with characters from Hotspur to Polonius, John Shakespeare and young Will himself. "In Acting Shakespeare" is about Da Vita's journey from unschooled Long Island boy to actor.

*"In Acting Shakespeare" borrows nothing from David Mamet.

To find out more about The Pearl Theatre Company, and "In Acting Shakespeare," please visit http://www.pearltheatre.org/. Next up at The Pearl, "Henry IV, Part I."

Does it matter if Will's the author?

Does the film "Anonymous" have you pondering who wrote all the works ascribed to one William Shakespeare?

Photo by Gregory Costanzo From L to R: Sean McNall (Richard II), Jolly Abraham (Harry Percy), and Grant Goodman (Henry Bolingbroke)

Consider the argument irrelevant. Whoever wrote the sweeping tragedies, masterful histories, insightful comedies [and a handful of clunkers], left a worthy legacy. He wrote as an Elizabethan, aware of his time and its mores, with wit and a deft hand at characters great and small.

But more on that anon.... This theater season, there are a number of fine productions celebrating that legacy.

The Pearl Theatre Company at City Center's Stage II is tackling the poesy of "Richard II" through December 24th. It's an ambitious, if uneven effort, looking at the divine right and mortal plight of kings.

Photo by Gregory Costanzo From L to R: Sean McNall (Richard II) and Jolly Abraham (the Queen)

"Richard II" is about the tragedy and the dangers
of ruling unwisely. In the title role, Sean McNall portrays a monarch unhinged by the challenge to his absolute authority by his cousin Harry Bolingbroke (Grant Goodman).

Bolingbroke is a populist leader but sometimes Goodman's affect seems too modern for the verse play he inhabits. This Bolingbroke is definitely lean and hungry. Dan Kremer as John of Gaunt, Earl of Lancaster, Harry's aggrieved and grieving father is excellent.

Photo by Gregory Costanzo From L to R: Grant Goodman (Henry Bolingbroke) and Sean McNall (Richard)

Under JR Sullivan's direction, the cast handle the poetry as if it were prose. That is smoothly, and without any sense of awkwardness.

Photo by Gregory Costanzo From L to R: Bill Christ (Duke of York) and Carol Schultz (Duchess of York)

Elsewhere around town, at The Barrow Street Theatre, Fiasco Theater performs a completely modernized and raucous version of "Cymbelline" through January 1. Fiasco Theater has transformed one of Shakespeare's lesser works into an excellent entertainment.

Also downtown at The Public, "King Lear" has just ended its run with Sam Waterston in the title role leading a brand-name cast. "Titus Andronicus" begins performances on the 29th of November through December 18th at the Public Lab and features Jay O. Sanders as Titus.

Jay O. Sanders in Titus Andronicus, directed by Michael Sexton, a Public Lab production running at The Public Theater from November 29 through December 18. Photo credit: Joseph Moran)

Looking forward, there is the January 10, 2012 opening of The Bridge Project production of "Richard III" with Kevin Spacey as the titular monarch under the direction of Sam Mendes at BAM.

So, back to the question-- does it matter who wrote these plays? Is it realy of concern if they were writ by an unknown hand unwilling to take credit for an enduring body of English literature or by an actor named William Shakespeare?

Photo by Gregory Costanzo From L to R: Grant Goodman (Henry Bolingbroke) and Charlie Francis Murphy (Sir Pierce of Exton)


The canon is vast and eloquent. It lends itself to the spoofery of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged) and the serious ministrations of actors and directors the world over. It has drawn the attention of your highschool English teacher and spawned rom-com plots for decades. The dramas attract filmed homages ranging from Kirosawa to Woody Allen.

In short, Shakespeare survives critical analyses and debates over who he was and what he may have been capable of doing. More importantly, all these centuries later, he offers deep and sustaining perceptions into our lives.


For more information about The Pearl's production of "Richard II", please visit www.pearltheatre.org.

To find out more about Fiasco's "Cymbelline" at
The Barrow Theatre, go to
www.barrowstreettheatre.com.

For a schedule of The Public Theatre's "Titus Andronicus", go to www.publictheater.org

For more information about BAM's "Richard III", please go to http://www.bam.org/