Formation | 1984 |
---|---|
Type | Theatre group |
Location | |
Artistic director(s) | Ann Ciccolella (since 2007) |
Website | www |
Austin Shakespeare is a professional, classical theater production and education company located in Austin, Texas, USA. Multiple annual productions are cast by audition from a mix of Actor's Equity [1] or Non-Equity, visiting [2] or local, and company alumni or new actors. [3] Performers of all ethnic and racial backgrounds are encouraged to audition. [4] Austin Shakespeare is a Resident Company of the Long Center for the Performing Arts. [5]
The annual Shakespeare Under the Stars free production in Zilker Park, as of 2016, has been performed for 32 years. [6] In 2013, the company mounted a production off-Broadway in New York City. [7] Although the foundation of the company's repertoire comes from the plays of William Shakespeare, other classical, high language plays from the likes of Tom Stoppard, Euripides, Tennessee Williams, Oscar Wilde, and Noël Coward have been performed. [8] In 2015, a Stephen Sondheim musical in concert kicked off the new season. [9]
Austin Shakespeare is passionate about providing theater education for all ages. [2] The Shakespeare 20/20 program exposes students to viewing and performing the Bard's works in the classroom under the guidance of professional actors. [10] Shakespeare Idol is an annual monologue and scene performance by area secondary students before a live audience. [11] It includes a workshop and evaluations by a panel of professional judges. Young Shakespeare, a teen company, annually presents Shakespeare plays at a recreation of The Globe Theater with the assistance of professional direction and creative team. [12] Shakespeare Aloud, a weekly reading group involves interested adults in hearing and reading the verse of Shakespeare. [2]
Austin Shakespeare, founded in 1984, [2] is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a legal name of Austin Shakespeare Festival Company, Inc. [13] Its programs are primarily funded by ticket sales, donations, and grants or other support from the likes of the City of Austin Economic Growth & Redevelopment Services Office/Cultural Arts Division, City of Austin Parks and Recreation Department, and Texas Commission on the Arts. [14] [15] Productions and operations of the company are supported by a large group of volunteers.
Zilker Metropolitan Park is a recreational area in south Austin, Texas at the juncture of Barton Creek and the Colorado River that comprises over 350 acres (142 ha) of publicly owned land. It is named after its benefactor, Andrew Jackson Zilker, who donated the land to the city in 1917. The land was developed into a park during the Great Depression in the 1930s. Today the park serves as a hub for many recreational activities and the hike and bike trail around Lady Bird Lake, both of which run next to the park. The large size of the park makes it a capable venue for large-scale events such as the Austin City Limits Music Festival and the Zilker Park Kite Festival. The park was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
Travesties is a 1974 play by Tom Stoppard. The play centres on the figure of Henry Carr, an elderly man who reminisces about Zürich in 1917 during the First World War, and his interactions with James Joyce when he was writing Ulysses, Tristan Tzara during the rise of Dada, and Lenin leading up to the Russian Revolution, all of whom were living in Zürich at that time.
Ben Iden Payne, also known as B. Iden Payne, was an English actor, director and teacher. Active in professional theater for seventy years, he helped the first modern Repertory Theatre in the United Kingdom, was an early and effective advocate for Elizabethan staging of Shakespeare plays, and served as an inspiration for Shakespeare Companies and University theater programs throughout North America and the British Isles. His name lives on as the name of a theater at the University of Texas as well as annual theater awards presented in Austin, Texas.
The Shakespeare Theatre Company is a regional theatre company located in Washington, D.C. The theatre company focuses primarily on plays from the Shakespeare canon, but its seasons include works by other classic playwrights such as Euripides, Ibsen, Wilde, Shaw, Schiller, Coward and Tennessee Williams. The company manages and performs in the Harman Center for the Arts, consisting of the Lansburgh Theatre and Sidney Harman Hall. In cooperation with George Washington University, they run the Academy for Classical Acting.
Andrew Scott Rannells is an American actor, voice actor, and singer.
Founded in 1992, Hyde Park Theatre is an arts center in Austin, Texas, that has produced over 50 world and regional premieres. In addition to a mainstage season, HPT curates the largest performance festival in the Southwest, FronteraFest.
Bill Rauch is an award-winning American theatre director. He was named the inaugural artistic director of the Ronald O. Perelman Performing Arts Center at the World Trade Center in 2016. Currently in development, the Perelman is the final piece of the plan to revitalize the World Trade Center site and will create work which inspires hope.
Raúl Eduardo Esparza is an American stage and television actor, singer, and voice artist, best known for his role as New York Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Rafael Barba in Law & Order: Special Victims Unit where he had a recurring role in season 14 and was promoted to a series regular in seasons 15 to 19. He has received Tony nominations for his role as Philip Salon in the Boy George musical Taboo in 2004; Robert in the musical comedy Company in 2006; a lazy and snarky man in Harold Pinter's The Homecoming; and an aggressive volatile movie producer in David Mamet's Speed the Plow. He played the role of Riff Raff on Broadway in the revival of The Rocky Horror Show and the role of Caractacus Potts in the Broadway musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
Patrick Page is an American actor, low bass singer, and playwright. He has originated the roles of Norman Osborn/The Green Goblin in Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark and Hades in Hadestown. He also played Menenius in Red Bull Theater's Coriolanus.
Jay Olcutt Sanders is an American actor who has worked in theatre, film, and TV, known for JFK (1991). He frequently appears in plays Off-Broadway at The Public Theatre.
Laila Robins is an American stage, film and television actress. She has appeared in films including Planes, Trains and Automobiles (1987), Live Nude Girls (1995), True Crime (1999), She's Lost Control (2014), and Eye in the Sky (2015). Her television credits include regular roles on Gabriel's Fire, Homeland, and Murder in the First.
Main Street Theater is a theatre company in the city of Houston, Texas. It consistently produces a repertoire of classic and contemporary plays, and its seasons generally run throughout the entire year.
The University of Texas Performing Arts Center (PAC) is a collective of five theaters operated by The University of Texas at Austin, College of Fine Arts. The theaters are the Bass Concert Hall, McCullough Theater, Bates Recital Hall, B. Iden Payne Theater and Oscar Brockett Theater. Theaters range in size from the Oscar G. Brockett Theater, which has 200 seats, to the Bass Concert Hall, which seats 3,000. In addition to the theaters, the PAC also has offices and meeting rooms, rehearsal spaces and shops which are located in the PAC building and across the campus. PAC provides students an opportunity to interact with professionals in staging events and performing arts and extends an opportunity to the surrounding community to participate in all-age programs.
Justin Blanchard is an American actor who has performed in television, film, theatre and radio. He is a member of SAG-AFTRA and the Actors' Equity Association.
Oak Park Festival Theatre (OPFT) is a professional theatre company in Oak Park, Illinois, under contract with Actors' Equity Association. The company was founded in 1975 by Marion Kaczmar, an Oak Park resident and arts patron, and performed Renaissance works, almost exclusively by William Shakespeare, until 2004, when it broadened its scope to classics of other eras. Its outdoor venue has been Austin Gardens, a wooded park near downtown Oak Park within walking distance from restaurants, Frank Lloyd Wright landmarks, and Metra and CTA trains. To attract a greater following, Renaissance, classical, and modern American works were added to the offerings, some being produced indoors in historic Farson-Mills Home and, in the 2010-11 season, in the studio space in the Madison Street Theatre.
Manoel Felciano is an American actor, singer, and songwriter.
Keith Franklin Fowler is an American actor, director, producer, and educator. He is a professor emeritus of drama and former head of directing in the Drama Department of the Claire Trevor School of the Arts of the University of California, Irvine (UCI), and he is the former artistic director of two LORT/Equity theaters.
The Hudson Shakespeare Company is a regional Shakespeare touring festival based in Jersey City in Hudson County, New Jersey that produces an annual summer Shakespeare in the Park festival and often features lesser done Shakespeare works such as The Two Noble Kinsmen and Timon of Athens. The company also produces several modern day productions in non theatrical venues such as their courtroom shows of Inherit the Wind and A Few Good Men in the Hoboken Municipal Courtroom. It produce a yearly educational program that ranges from student workshops to full length Shakespeare productions.
Bernard Gersten is an American theatrical producer. Beginning in the 1960s through the early 2000s, Gersten played a major role in shaping American drama and musical theatre.
The Shakespeare Center of Los Angeles (SCLA) is a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) theatre company based in Los Angeles, California, that stages outdoor and indoor Shakespeare plays and produces the Simply Shakespeare series of benefit readings around Los Angeles. The Center also provides arts-based opportunities for veterans and at-risk youth.