Tempest Tossed

Two evenings devoted to Shakespeare's great late play The Tempest

Monday, October 1, at 7:30 pm: The Play Performed
{Three actors embody all eleven characters in an antic tour de force, a commedia dell'arte flecked rendition of Shakespeare's The Tempest}
Angel Orensanz Foundation / 172 Norfolk St (so. of Houston)

Tuesday, October 2, at 7:30 pm: The Play Considered
{Three experts consider the protean range of shadings and meanings embedded in the text}
NYU's Casa Italiana / 24 W. 12th St.

Attendance at both events free and open to the public on a first-come first served basis.

The remarkable production of The Tempest which forms the occasion for this pair of evenings grew out of an intensive three-week workshop this past summer, when three professional actors (all veterans of the NYU Tisch School's graduate program), a director and other members of the creative team (also all Tisch veterans) all convened at NYU's Italian campus in Florence, the Villa La Pietra. Settling on Shakespeare's magisterial late play, the collaborators decided to revision it in the manner of a sort of primordial Commedia dell'arte travelling troupe, with the three actors taking on all eleven of the parts. Originally intended for a single night's performance in the fragrant Limonaia of the Villa La Pietra, the production proved just too much of a good thing, and it was decided to bring the troop back to New York for this special reprise in the legendarily atmospheric surround of the Angel Orensanz Foundation (originally New York City's very first synagogue). Alas one night only: Monday Oct. 1.

Directed by Tisch veteran Jim Calder (a two time recipient of National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, who has himself performed works by The Bard at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego), this production was created in collaboration with the cast and the creative team of Deborah Hecht and Daniel Larlham. The cast includes:

Shane McRae (Ferdinand, Caliban, Sebastian), whose credits include numerous television, film, and theatrical productions including the Tony Award winning production of Take Me Out, and a portrayal of Richmond in the Public Theater's Richard III.

Nadia Bowers (Miranda, Ariel, Alonso, Trinculo), who has worked extensively on Broadway, including appearances in the Tony Award Winning plays Metamorphoses and Doubt, also a Pulitzer Prize winner. More recently, Bowers was in The Farnsworth Invention at the La Jolla Playhouse, a play that she is scheduled to appear in on Broadway later this fall.

André Holland (Prospero, Antonio, Stefano), who was last seen off-Broadway in Tanya Barfield's Blue Door at Playwright's Horizons. Other theatre credits includes Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It at the NYSF Shakespeare in the Park, and Hamlet, Comedy of Errors, Saint Joan, Romeo and Juliet, and Midsummer Night's Dream at the Georgia Shakespeare Festival.

The rest of the production team includes: Editor, Dramaturg/Voice, and Text Coach Deb Hecht; Percussion Daniel Larlham; Costume Design Arnulfo Muldonado; and musician Nick DiMichele.

The following evening, Tuesday October 2, three Shakespeare enthusiasts will convene at NYU's Casa Italiana (also at 7:30) to discuss both the prior evening's production and the play itself in a wider context. To wit:

Harry Berger Jr., Professor Emeritus of Literature from the University of California at Santa Cruz and frequent visiting fellow at the NY Institute for the Humanities; author, among others of Second World and Green World: Studies in Renaissance Fiction Making (1988); Making Trifles of Terrors: Redistributing Complicities in Shakespeare (1997); and Imaginary Audition: Shakespeare on Stage and Page (1989).

John Guare, the well beloved American playwright, creator of such award winning classics as The House of Blue Leaves, Lydie Breeze, Six Degrees of Separation, and the musical version of Two Gentlemen of Verona. In his capacity as co-editor of the Lincoln Center Review, he recently completed work on an issue devoted to Shakespeare's Cymbeline.

Elena Araoz is an actress and director, in which latter capacity, she recently helped to fashion the Providence-based theatrical company Aurea's version of Christopher Logue's Homeric variations, War Music; she has also served as assistant director to Jonathan Miller in his productions of King Lear, Cosi Fan Tutte, and the Bach Saint Matthew Passion.

To arrange interviews or for further information on the New York Institute for the Humanities, call 212-998-2100 or visit www.nyu.edu/fas/institute/nyih.

The NYU Humanities Initiative sponsors research, collaborative teaching, conferences, working groups, and outreach by way of fostering a university-wide community in the humanities at NYU. Launched in 2007, its mission replaces and significantly expands that of the former Humanities Council. For further information on the Humanities Initiative, visit www.nyu.edu/humanities.council or call 212 998-2190.

The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU was established in 1976 for promoting the exchange of ideas between academics, professionals, politicians, diplomats, writers, journalists, musicians, painters, and other artists in New York City-and between all of them and the city. It currently comprises 220 fellows. Throughout the year, the NYIH organizes numerous public events and symposia.