Theatre for a New Audience Founding Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz announced the second season at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn. They surely took theater audiences by storm last season when they opened with A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, directed by Julie Taymor with music by Elliot Goldenthal and continued with King Lear by William Shakespeare, directed by Arin Arbus and featuring Olivier Award nominee Michael Pennington. The Season concluded with Eugène Ionesco’s The Killer, in a new translation by Michael Feingold, directed by Darko Tresnjak, and featuring Michael Shannon. A diverse audience of nearly 49,000 attended the three productions, more than doubling TFANA’s largest prior season.
The US premiere of the internationally acclaimed The Valley of Astonishment, a new work conceived and directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne, features Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni and Jared McNeill. Previews begin September 14 for an opening September 18 and a run through October 5.
The first major New York production in 58 years of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, Parts I and II, edited to 3.5 hours plus a 30-minute intermission, is directed by Michael Boyd, former Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company, and features John Douglas Thompson as Tamburlaine. Previews begin November 1, opening November 16, with a run through December 21.
The New York premiere of Fiasco Theater’s The Two Gentlemen of Verona by William Shakespeare is directed by Jessie Austrian and Ben Steinfeld. This production, originally produced by Folger Theatre, Washington, D.C., begins previews April 24 for a run through May 24.
Mr. Horowitz says, “Our second season features a new play and new productions of classics by some of America’s and Europe’s most compelling artists. The latest work by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne explores the human mind, building on Brook’s extraordinary 1993 production of The Man Who. Michael Boyd often directs Shakespeare, but he’s never staged Tamburlaine, a 400-year-old play that has much to reveal about power for today’s audiences. John Douglas Thompson (Othello and Macbeth for Theatre for a New Audience), who has never played Marlowe, collaborates with him. Fiasco Theater is a young American company, whose ongoing dialogue with Shakespeare is thrilling. Through play and simplicity, they renew Shakespeare’s stories in fresh ways.”
After 34 years of being itinerant and mostly playing in Manhattan, Theatre for a New Audience moved to Brooklyn and opened its first permanent home, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, in October 2013. Built by The City of New York in partnership with Theatre for a New Audience and located in the Brooklyn Cultural District, Polonsky Shakespeare Center was designed by Hugh Hardy and H3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture with theatre consultants Akustiks, Milton Glaser, Jean-Guy Lecat, and Theatre Projects. Housed inside the building are the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage (299 seats) — the first stage built for Shakespeare and classical drama in New York City since Lincoln Center’s 1965 Vivian Beaumont — and the Theodore C. Rogers Studio (50 seats).
Subscriptions for Theatre for a New Audience’s 2014-2015 Season are $147 for a 3-play package and are available by calling (212) 229-2819, ext. 10. Flex Passes are also available for $208 and include four tickets to be used in any combination over the 2014-2015 Season. Single tickets go on sale in August. For more information or to subscribe online, please visit www.tfana.org.
New Deal tickets for ages 30 and under or full-time students of any age are priced at $20 each and can be purchased when single tickets go on sale.