| Address | Upstairs at the Hayworth, 2511 Wilshire Blvd. Los Angeles, California  United States |
|---|---|
| Type | Actor-Driven Theatre Ensemble |
| Capacity | 99 |
| Opened | 2000 |
| Years active | 2000 - present |
The ARK Theatre Company is an actor-driven repertory theatre ensemble working in Los Angeles, California.
Ark Theatre Company is an ensemble of theatre professionals specializing in classical theatre, with an eye to contemporary plays that reflect the depth and interplay of language in classical works. [1] The company was founded in 2000 by artistic director Paul Wagar, a former member of the Royal Shakespeare Company. The Honorary Advisory Board of Directors consists of: Marshall Borden, Kitty Felde, Doug Jocelyn, Patricia Johnson, Lee Meriwether, Karen Morrow, Lisa Rosen, Michael Rosen, Jennifer Rowland, Martin Sheen, Mindy Steinman, and Gore Vidal. Ark Theatre Company was cited by LA Weekly as being among the "Los Angeles actor-driven ensembles with staying power," [2] adding that the company "performs classics with a rock & roll sloppiness; equal parts aggravating and scintillating, always worth watching."
Ark Theatre Company has, since its inception, produced a wide variety of material, from Edward II by Christopher Marlowe to [3] Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep.The Ugly Man by Brad Frazier, The Maids by Jean Genet, and F*cking Hollywood, adapted from Arthur Schnitzler's La Ronde by Paul Wagar, are all testament to the company's intrinsic eclecticism. Ark Theatre's controversial 2003 production of Anthony Burgess' A Clockwork Orange, directed by Brad Mays, [4] was nominated for three LA Weekly Theatre Awards, for Best Direction, Best Revival Production (of a 20th-century work), and Best Actress. [5] Vanessa Claire Smith won Best Actress for her gender-bending portrayal of Alex, the story's music-loving teenaged sociopath. [6] [7] Richard Tatum was likewise nominated for an LA Weekly Theatre Award for his performance in Ibsen's A Doll's House. [8] Other representative productions include director Richard Tatum's staging of The Country Wife by William Wycherley [9] for which Tatum received an LA Weekly Theatre Award nomination for Best Adaptation; [10] Richard Tatum's staging of On the Verge by Eric Overmeyer; Steven Shields' production of William Shakespeare's The Tempest; Return to the Forbidden Planet, directed by Vanessa Claire Smith; [11] Les Miller's staging of Ibsen's Hedda Gabler; [12] Lloyd's Prayer by Kevin Kling and Christopher Durang's Sister Mary Ignatius Explains It All For You, both directed by Susan Lee Johnson; and Caryl Churchill's sexual fantasmagoria Cloud 9, and a reconceptualization of William Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, both directed by Paul Wagar.
A Clockwork Orange is a dystopian satirical black comedy novel by English writer Anthony Burgess, published in 1962. It is set in a near-future society that has a youth subculture of extreme violence. The teenage protagonist, Alex, narrates his violent exploits and his experiences with state authorities intent on reforming him. The book is partially written in a Russian-influenced argot called "Nadsat", which takes its name from the Russian suffix that is equivalent to '-teen' in English. According to Burgess, the novel was a jeu d'esprit written in just three weeks.
Dame Vanessa Redgrave is an English actress. Throughout her career spanning over six decades, Redgrave has garnered numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a Tony Award, two Primetime Emmy Awards and an Olivier Award, making her one of the few performers to achieve the Triple Crown of Acting. She has also received various honorary awards, including the BAFTA Fellowship Award, the Golden Lion Honorary Award, and an induction into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.
Hedda Gabler is a play written by Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen. The world premiere was staged on 31 January 1891 at the Residenztheater in Munich. Ibsen himself was in attendance, although he remained back-stage. The play has been canonized as a masterpiece within the genres of literary realism, nineteenth century theatre, and world drama. Ibsen mainly wrote realistic plays until his forays into modern drama. Hedda Gabler dramatizes the experiences of the title character, Hedda, the daughter of a general, who is trapped in a marriage and a house that she does not want. Overall, the title character for Hedda Gabler is considered one of the great dramatic roles in theater. The year following its publication, the play received negative feedback and reviews. Hedda Gabler has been described as a female variation of Hamlet.
Fiona Shaw is an Irish film and theatre actress. Known for extensive work with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre, as well as in film and television, in 2020, she was listed at No. 29 on The Irish Times list of Ireland's greatest film actors. She was made an Honorary Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth II in 2001.
Annette Carol Bening is an American actress. In a career spanning more than four decades, she has received many accolades, including a BAFTA Award and two Golden Globes as well as nominations for a Primetime Emmy Award, two Tony Awards, and five Academy Awards.
Sir Peter Reginald Frederick Hall CBE was an English theatre, opera and film director. His obituary in The Times declared him "the most important figure in British theatre for half a century" and on his death, a Royal National Theatre statement declared that Hall's "influence on the artistic life of Britain in the 20th century was unparalleled". In 2018, the Laurence Olivier Awards, recognizing achievements in London theatre, changed the award for Best Director to the Sir Peter Hall Award for Best Director.
Deborah Warner is a British director of theatre and opera, known for her interpretations of the works of Shakespeare, Bertolt Brecht, Benjamin Britten and Henrik Ibsen.
Alex is a fictional character in Anthony Burgess' novel A Clockwork Orange and Stanley Kubrick's film adaptation of the same name, in which he is played by Malcolm McDowell. In the book, Alex's surname is not stated. In the film, however, Kubrick chose it to be DeLarge, a reference to Alex calling himself The Large in the novel. Later on in the film, two newspaper articles print his name as "Alex Burgess", a reference to Anthony Burgess. In addition to the book and film, Alex was portrayed by Vanessa Claire Smith in the ARK Theatre Company's multimedia adaptation of A Clockwork Orange, directed by Brad Mays.
Delferd Lynn Shores is an American film director, television writer, producer, playwright, standup comedian, and actor. He has written, directed and produced across studio and independent film, network and cable television and Los Angeles, regional and national touring theatre. He is also known for his LGBTQ+ activism. Shores was born in Winters, TX, the son of a Southern Baptist pastor and a high school drama teacher.
Bill Rauch is an American theatre director. He was named the inaugural artistic director of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center (PACNYC) at the World Trade Center in 2018. The Perelman was the final piece of the plan to revitalize the World Trade Center site and creates work which inspires hope.
David Hammond is an American director and acting teacher. He trained for the theatre at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and received his M.F.A. from the Carnegie Mellon University Drama Department. He did his undergraduate studies at Harvard University and graduated magna cum laude with a concentration in Elizabethan literature. He taught at the Juilliard School, the American Conservatory Theater, and the Yale School of Drama and later became the artistic director of the PlayMakers Repertory Company.
Richard Tatum is an American voice and stage actor. He is known for his voice-over work in video games, movies and TV shows.
Stephen Sachs is an American stage director and playwright. He is the co-artistic director of the Fountain Theatre in Los Angeles, which he co-founded in 1990.
Brad Mays is a multi award-winning independent filmmaker and stage director, living and working in Los Angeles, California.
Lorenda Starfelt was an independent film producer, as well as a committed political activist and blogger who notably dug up president Barack Obama's birth announcement in an August 1961 edition of The Honolulu Advertiser while researching her documentary on the 2008 presidential election, The Audacity of Democracy.
Vanessa Claire Stewart is an American actress, producer, and writer.
Ivo van Hove is a Belgian theatre director known as the artistic director of Toneelgroep Amsterdam in the Netherlands and for his Off-Broadway avant-garde experimental theatre productions. On Broadway, he has directed revival productions of Arthur Miller's A View from the Bridge, and The Crucible, Lee Hall's Network in 2018, and Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim's West Side Story in 2020. Among his numerous awards he has received a Tony Award and a Laurence Olivier Award for A View from the Bridge. He was made a Knight of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France in 2004, and a Commander in the Order of the Crown in 2016.
Mike Roche is an American actor. Roche played Humphrey James in the 2007 Off-Broadway revival of Night Over Taos by Maxwell Anderson directed by Estelle Parsons at Theatre for the New City in New York City. The show was produced by INTAR Theatre.
Kip Williams is an Australian theatre and opera director. Williams is the current Artistic Director of Sydney Theatre Company. His appointment at age 30 made him the youngest artistic director in the company's history.
The Sacred Fools Theater Company is a Los Angeles–based theatre company and nonprofit organization. Founded in January 1997, it's a member organization of the LA Stage Alliance.