Bad Quarto Productions, a theatre company specializing in performing modern theatre using Shakespearean staging techniques, is about to open Beaumont and Fletcher's play Cupid's Revenge this week. By the company's estimates, this will be the first performance of the play in nearly 300 years.
Cupid's Revenge is directed by California-based director Angelina LaBarre, who is also a professor at Contra Costa College. LaBarre's recent directing credits with CCC include
Exit, Pursued By a Bear,
The Laramie Project,
Almost, Maine, and
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged. Other CA directing credits include
The Merry Wives with Big Idea Theatre,
Julius Caesar with Darkroom Productions, and
Twelfth Night, The Sea Voyage, and
The Merry Wives of Windsorwith Roving Shakespeare. Angelina holds an MFA and an M.Litt. in Shakespeare and Performance from Mary Baldwin University's partner program with the American Shakespeare Center.
Musical direction and original music is by James Overton, who has appeared in Bad Quarto's recent productions of
The Life and Death of Jack Straw,
Hamlet: The First Quarto, and
The Taming of a Shrew. Overton studied drama and music composition at Bennington College in Vermont prior to moving to New York, and is an accomplished singer and guitarist.
The cast of
Cupid's Revenge features Sabrina Robinson as Bacha; Ivy Tinker as Cupid, Zoylus, and Hero; Lindsay Fabes as Cleophila and Urania; Liz Lodato as Dorialus and Urania's Maid; Alex Dabertin as Leucippus; James Overton as Telamon and the Priest of Cupid; Travis Burbee as Agenor; Brandon Fox as Leontius; Marcella Pereda as Ismenus and Bacha's Maid; Analiese Puzon as Timantus; Amelia Fei as Hidaspes; and Jane Coty as Nisus. Citizens, soldiers, and servants played by members of the company.
Cupid's Revenge will play at 353 W. 48th St. in New York on the following dates and times:
Saturday, April 15th: 8 PM
Sunday, April 16th: 8 PM
Friday, April 21st: 8 PM
Saturday. April 22nd: 2 PM
Saturday. April 22nd: 8 PM
Sunday, April 23rd: 2 PM
The house opens 20 minutes before curtain times.
Cupid's Revenge is approximately 90 minutes long, and will be performed without an intermission. Come early and enjoy live music performed by the cast.
Tickets are available through Brown Paper Tickets at
http://cupidsrevenge2017.bpt.me/. For more information please visit
http://www.BadQuarto.org. Questions may be directed to
info@badquarto.org, or by calling
(646) 598-2128 between 10 AM and 6 PM.
Of composing original music for
Cupid's Revenge, music director James Overton says, "Bad Quarto Productions takes Shakespearean plays off their pedestals, and performs them in a manner reminiscent of how they were originally meant to be seen: bareboned, and fast-paced. So when approaching making the music for this show, I knew that I didn't want to write something that conformed to what I imagine people think when they imagine the classics, and theatre. I wanted the lyrics to be adapted into music that I'd want to listen to, which is hipster-nonsense-indie folk-rock." Overton counts Andrew Bird and Neutral Milk Hotel among his influences.
About Bad Quarto Productions: Bad Quarto Productions was founded in 2010 to explore the rarely performed plays of Shakespeare's time, and the ways in which Shakespeare's staging techniques can inform modern theatrical productions. The company has produced the earliest printed version of
Romeo and Juliet and
The Taming of a Shrew ("a shrew" not "the shrew"); the first performance of
The Merry Devil of Edmonton in the modern era; and
The Ballad of Dido, an original musical developed using Shakespearean techniques. Bad Quarto's performance style has found favor with audiences wherever we've played, and we continue to look for new ways of bridging the gap between Shakespeare's theatre and our own.
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