Shakespeare Exploded! New Play Reading Series
As part of its commitment to supporting the development of new American plays, the A.R.T. will produce a reading series during the Shakespeare Exploded! festival featuring new plays inspired by Shakespeare’s life and works. All readings and discussions are free and open to the public.
PAST
Mortal Terror
by Robert Brustein
Directed by Daniela Varon
Sunday, Dec. 6, 11AM,
Loeb Drama Center
Featuring Stafford Clark-Price, John Kuntz, Tommy Derrah, Jeremy Geidt, Michael Hammond, Merritt Janson, Ian Kerch, and Wesley Savick
It is 1605, the year of the infamous Gunpowder Plot. Shakespeare is busy writing Macbeth to justify King James’s right to the throne, and dallying with his Danish Queen to satisfy other kinds of desires. Overflowing with colorful Jacobean characters such as Ben Jonson, John Marston, Sir John Harington, and Guy Fawkes, this play takes a peek into the history of a troubled time and into the heart of a troubled genius.
Shakespeare Explosion: A Panel Discussion about Shakespeare and Contemporary Culture
Saturday Dec. 5, 11AM | Loeb Drama Center
Join Artistic Director of the Public Theater Oskar Eustis, renowned Shakespeare scholar Marjorie Garber, and A.R.T. Artistic Director Diane Paulus for a conversation about Shakespeare’s impact on contemporary culture.
The Leer Sisters
by Lawrence Switzky
Directed by Melia Bensussen
Sat. Nov. 7, 4:30PM,
OBERON @ 2 Arrow Street
Part ghost story, part revenge tragedy, part love poem, The Leer Sisters brings Shakespeare’s sublime King Lear to the heart of contemporary America. As the daughters of a dying father search for happiness across the shifting borders of life and death, they confront the shattered dreams that drove them from their family home-and keep calling them back. Playwright Lawrence Switzky is the winner of the 2009 Phyllis Anderson Contest, an annual playwriting competition open to all Harvard University students.
The Lady Hamlet
by Sarah Schulman
with Kate Burton and Jennifer Van Dyck
directed by Peter DuBois
Tuesday, October 20, 7:30 p.m
Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge
As part of its ongoing commitment to developing new American work, the American Repertory Theater (A.R.T). presents a reading of Sarah Schulman’s play The Lady Hamlet, in collaboration with the Harvard Art Museum and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, on Tuesday, October 20 at 7:30pm at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, 24 Quincy Street, Cambridge. The reading is free and open to the public.
Two artists, both born to play Hamlet, also happened to be born women. With 1920s New York City as their sparring field, Margo Stayden Burns and Helene de Montpelier discover themselves engaged in a war of wits that leaves their colleagues and lovers caught in the crossfire. Tony-nominated actress Kate Burton reads Helene opposite Jennifer Van Dycke as Margo, directed by Huntington Theatre Artistic Director Peter DuBois.
The Lady Hamlet reading is presented as part of the Shakespeare Exploded! New Play Reading Series.
The reading has been made possible through the generous support of Learning From Performers, a program of the Office for the Arts at Harvard, through the Melvoin Family Fund. It will be followed by a post-performance discussion with playwright Sarah Schulman.
The Lady Hamlet is presented in collaboration with the Harvard Art Museum and the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts during the “ACT UP New York: Activism, Art and the AIDS Crisis, 1987-1993” exhibition at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts. Sarah Schulman’s Oral History Project, created with Jim Hubbard, is a central component of this exhibition and will be on display at the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts October 15 — December 23, 2009
For more information on the exhibition visit www.harvardartmuseum.org.