Chicago Shakespeare Festival
February 6 – March 23, 2014
Directed by: Gary Griffin
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Boasting one show-stopping song after another—like “Everything’s Coming Up Roses” and “Let Me Entertain You”—this classic musical is inspired by memoirs of the burlesque dancer Gypsy Rose Lee; and it marks Associate Artistic Director Gary Griffin’s continued exploration of the Sondheim canon. Tony Award® nominee Louise Pitre makes her Chicago Shakespeare debut as Rose, the most infamous of all stage mothers. Pitre’s career highlights include many critically acclaimed performances in the theater, on television and concert stages across North America and Europe. Gypsy, a jewel of the American musical theater, has been described by The New York Times critic Frank Rich as “Broadway’s own brassy, unlikely answer to King Lear.”
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.
Chicago Shakespeare Festival
February 22 – March 22, 2014
Director: David H. Bell
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A magical forest filled with a host of some of Shakespeare’s most comedic characters make A Midsummer Night’s Dream one of his most popular plays. CST’s 75-minute abridged Short Shakespeare! production serves as an ideal introduction to the Bard—for audiences of all ages. When lovers cross with mischievous sprites in an enchanted forest, a series of mishaps occur and nothing is what it seems. Add to the mix a bevy of fumbling actors and chaos breaks loose until dawn breaks and all is once again right with the world. After the performance, the actors remain on stage for a brief question-and-answer session. Then join the audience in the Lobby for one-on-one conversations and photo opportunities.
Chicago Shakespeare Festival
March 13 – May 4, 2014
Directed by Gary Griffin
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Associate Artistic Director Gary Griffin brings you not one, but two musicals, Gypsy and Road Show, that feature the extraordinary talents of Stephen Sondheim—both inspired by real stories of ambitious Americans in pursuit of their dreams. Based on the lives of the boldly enterprising brothers Addison and Wilson Mizner, the musical journey of Road Show spans forty years—from the Alaskan Gold Rush to the Florida real estate boom in the 1930s. Traversing the continent in a variety of get-rich-quick schemes, the brothers stick together through experiences that change their lives in unexpected ways.
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.
Chicago Shakespeare Festival
March 30 – April 13, 2014
Adaptor/Director: Emma Rice
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Lauded all around the world for its trademark vitality, the artistic collective from Cornwall, England, Kneehigh makes its long-awaited Chicago debut with the iconic work that first catapulted the company to international fame. Marrying gorgeous music and ingenious staging with cheeky humor and Wagnerian intensity, Kneehigh now reimagines one of the world’s oldest love stories. Cornish King Mark is at war; he rules with his head, not his heart. But he hasn’t counted on falling head over heels for his enemy’s sister, or expected the arrival of the enigmatic Tristan.