Lantern Theater
February 6 – March 16, 2014
Directed by Charles McMahon
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Idealism, envy, and power politics collide as the Roman Republic reaches a crisis. Caesar’s political genius, military prowess, and overwhelming popular appeal make him the most powerful leader the Republic has ever known. But his popularity breeds suspicion among his rivals and some fear Caesar’s power will corrode the freedom of the State. Shakespeare’s vision of Rome is both epic and intimate, from powerful speeches in grand public squares to whispered conspiracies in back rooms and dark hallways. There in the shadows, unlikely alliances set up a chain of events that bring down the great Caesar and thrust Rome into a disastrous civil war. Tony Award nominee Forrest McClendon leads an all-Philadelphia cast in Shakespeare’s timeless political thriller, brought to you by “the city’s top presenter of Shakespeare’s work.” (TheaterMania.com)
The Old Globe
February 8 – March 16, 2014
Directed by Barry Edelstein
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NPR calls Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein “one of the country’s leading Shakespeareans.” Now Edelstein’s work takes center stage in his Old Globe directorial debut with Shakespeare’s most enchanting masterpiece, featuring a powerful musical score written expressly for the production by acclaimed classical composer Michael Torke. The Winter’s Talesweeps breathtakingly from tragedy to comedy and along the way visits kings and queens, dancing shepherds, a most extraordinary statue, and one notoriously hungry bear, before it reaches its stunning, magical conclusion.
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
By William Shakespeare
Edited and Directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney
February 18 – March 23, 2014
In an exciting international collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company and GableStage, Miami, The Public welcomes back writer/director Tarell Alvin McCraney (The Brother/Sister Plays) as its new artist in residence with ANTONY & CLEOPATRA. At the fringes of a war-torn empire, a man and a woman have fallen desperately, passionately in love. But for a soldier set to enforce the imperial will and the queen of a people intent on throwing off the yoke of empire, there is no place for personal desire. McCraney creates a stripped down, radical new version of Shakespeare’s gripping story of romance set against a world of imperial politics and power play and transports us to 18th century, sun-soaked Saint-Domingue on the eve of revolution. RSC in America is presented in collaboration with The Ohio State University.
KING LEAR – Theater For A New Audience, Brooklyn, NY
By William Shakespeare
Direction: Arin Arbus
Featuring: Michael Pennington
Scenic Designer: Riccardo Hernandez
Costume Designer: Susan Hilferty
Lighting Designer: Marcus Doshi
Composer: Michael Attias
March 14 – May 4, 2014
[button url=”http://www.tfana.org/tickets” target=”blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]Considered to be one of the greatest plays in the English language, King Lear tells the story of a savage familial power struggle that follows Lear’s misguided decision to apportion his kingdom before his death.
For Arin Arbus, the play’s taut intertwining of the political and the personal and its breathtaking power to distill an entire complex world into a story of two families is riveting. Moreover, she finds “its radical political assertions remarkable. Shakespeare challenges the very foundations of Western civilization, pointing out the absurdity of privilege, entitlement, social and economic hierarchies, and man’s assertion of his power over nature.”
This production is sponsored by Deloitte.
THE KILLER – Theater For A New Audience, Brooklyn, NC
By Eugène Ionesco
Newly Translated: Michael Feingold
Direction: Darko Tresnjak
Featuring Michael Shannon
May 17-June 29, 2014
[button url=”http://www.tfana.org/tickets” target=”blank”]Buy Tickets[/button]A searing and darkly funny parable about violence and resistance, Ionesco’s The Killer premiered in Paris in 1959 and has become a modern classic of the Theatre of the Absurd. Berenger, Ionesco’s cheerful, well-meaning everyman, discovers a “radiant city” near his dismal urban home, a perpetually sunny, impeccably clean place full of marvelous architecture and delicious food. The one hitch: a serial murderer has been brazenly killing people there for so long that the authorities have given up trying to catch him.
Oscar nominee (Revolutionary Road) Michael Shannon plays Berenger. Our production will bring out the humor and taut film noir aura of this work, underscoring the cinematic allure of the murders, the futile chase, the bungled investigation and the climactic confrontation with the criminal. The exquisitely simple approach will spotlight powerful, precise acting and spare, sculptural design.
Saratoga Shakespeare Company
July 15 – July 27, 2014
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Join us as we present one of the greatest tragedies ever written, Shakespeare’s MACBETH, overflowing with murder, madness and evil spirits, as it explores the dark side of ambition, greed, and guilt. MACBETH is the play most requested by our summer audiences, and we are very excited to gratify your wishes.