Hartford Stage Opens 50th Anniversary Season with LA DISPUTE in Rep with MACBETH, Now thru 11/10

Hartford Stage, under the leadership of Artistic Director Darko Tresnjak and Managing Director Michael Stotts, presents Classical Repertory for a New Generation, the theatre's new initiative to produce two classics in repertory each season, featuring a new adaptation of Marivaux's La Dispute, in repertory with Shakespeare's Macbeth, both directed by Tresnjak, the first shows of the Tony Award-winning theatre's 50th Anniversary Season.

"We will begin in the fall with a return to Hartford Stage's roots in classical theatre. We're going to do two classics in repertory, with the same company of actors performing both plays," said Managing Director Mike Stotts.

Repertory highlights include the Hartford Stage debut of costume designer Suttirat Larlarb (costume designer for Slumdog Millionaire and the opening ceremony of the 2012 London Olympic Games); the return of actresses Kate Forbes (The Crucible at Hartford Stage) and Kate MacCluggage (Twelfth Night at Hartford Stage); the Hartford Stage debut of Callaway Award Winner Matthew Rauch as Macbeth; and the premiere of a new adaptation of Marivaux's La Dispute by Darko Tresnjak and ElizaBeth Williamson, from a translation by Williamson (a 2008 NEA Fellow in Literary Translation.)

Tickets for both shows go on sale to the general public this week. To order, call Hartford Stage at 860-527-5151 or visit www.hartfordstage.org.

La Dispute, directed by Tresnjak, will run today, September 12 through November 10. From the era of Les Liaisons Dangereuses and the Marquis de Sade comes this wicked and provocative comedy. A Prince and his mistress dispute the question of all questions: "Who was unfaithful first? Man or Woman?" The only way to find the answer is to conduct an illicit experiment - into the origins of love itself.

"We're going to open with La Dispute, in which Marivaux tests the very 18th Century view that you can determine the truth of anything, given the right way to prove it. If we recreate the Garden of Eden, can we prove whether men or women are more likely to cheat? But when you start to experiment with human beings, as the play shows, things don't always turn out the way one might hope. What seems light-hearted at first turns cruel fairly quickly," says Williamson.

Macbeth, by Shakespeare, also directed by Darko Tresnjak, will run September 14 through November 10. A masterpiece of world literature, Shakespeare's swift and relentless tragedy uncovers the terrifying consequences of blind ambition. In medieval Scotland, a savage world of ghosts, witches and bloody battlefields, a dark prophecy leads a warrior and his wife past the point of no return.

"Macbeth is Shakespeare's magnificent tragedy about the consequences of a wrong choice, the corruption of a good man, and the deterioration of his world. It is a play about the most frightening possibilities inside of every human being. I look forward to exploring it with Suttirat, Matthew, Kate and our entire repertory company," says Tresnjak, who also will serve as the set designer for the production.

Director Darko Tresnjak joinEd Hartford Stage in 2011 as Artistic Director and directed Bell, Book and Candle; The Tempest; A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder; Breath & Imagination; and Twelfth Night at the Stage. He was the Artistic Director of The Old Globe Shakespeare Festival in San Diego from 2004-2009. His directing credits at The Old Globe include The Women; The Pleasure of His Company;Bell, Book and Candle; Cyrano de Bergerac; Coriolanus; All's Well That Ends Well;Hamlet;Titus Adronicus;A Midsummer Night's Dream;The Winter's Tale; A Comedy of Errors; Antony and Cleopatra; The Two Noble Kinsmen; and Pericles. Other directing credits include the national tour of The Merchant of Venice, starring F. Murray Abraham; City of Angels at Goodspeed Musicals; and Titus Adronicus at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

The casts of La Dispute and Macbeth include Philippe Bowgen (Twilight: Los Angeles 1992, Off-Broadway) as Mesrin/Malcolm; Kaliswa Brewster (Julius Caesar, The Guthrie Theater) as Églé/Third Witch; Robert Eli (Bell, Book and Candle, Hartford Stage) as Lord/Macduff; Kate Forbes (The Crucible, Hartford Stage; Othello, Theatre For A New Audience) as Carise/Lady Macbeth; Grant Goodman (Clybourne Park, Milwaukee Repertory Theater) as Prince/Banquo; Mahira Kakkar (Harper Regan, Atlantic Theatre Company) as Adine/Second Witch, Gentlewoman; Kate MacCluggage (Twelfth Night, Hartford Stage; Much Ado About Nothing, Theatre For A New Audience) as Hermianne/Lady Macduff; David Manis (War Horse, Lincoln Center Theater) as Mesrou/Duncan; Matthew Rauch (Wolf of Wall Street, film;Banshee; TV series;The Merchant of Venice, Broadhurst Theatre) as Macbeth; andNoble Shropshire (The Tempest and A Christmas Carol, Hartford Stage) as Lord/Ross, Porter.

The creative team features set design for La Dispute by Jedediah Ike (The Contender, TV series); set design for Macbeth by Darko Tresnjak; costume design for La Disputeby Joshua Pearson (Titus Andronicus, associate costume designer, Stratford Festival;Twelfth Night, associate costume designer, Oregon Shakespeare Festival); costume design for Macbeth by Suttirat Larlarb (films The American, Sunshine, and 127 Hours); lighting design for both productions by Matthew Richards (Bell, Book and Candle and Twelfth Night, Hartford Stage); sound design for both productions by Jane Shaw (Breath & Imagination, Hartford Stage); dramaturg for both productions,ElizaBeth Williamson; and production stage manager for both productions, Mary K Klinger.

A host of special events around the repertory productions will be announced later.

Now entering its 50th Anniversary season, Hartford Stage is one of the nation's leading resident theatres, known internationally for producing classics, provocative new plays and musicals, and neglected works from the past, as well as a distinguished education program that reaches 21,000 students annually. Hartford Stage has earned many of the nation's most distinguished awards, including a Tony Award for Outstanding Regional Theatre, the Margo Jones Award for Development of New Works, OBIE awards, two New York Critics Circle Awards, a Dramatists Guild/CBS Award and an Elliot Norton Award, and has produced nationally renowned titles, including the Broadway productions of Enchanted April and Our Country's Good and the Off-Broadway productions of The Orphans' Home Cycle and The Carpetbaggers Children. In the fall of 2013, the Hartford Stage production of A Gentlemen's Guide to Love and Murder will open at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway. The leading provider of theatre education programs in Connecticut, Hartford Stage's offerings include student matinees, in-school theatre residencies, teen performance opportunities, theatre classes for students (ages 3-18) and adults, afterschool programs and professional development courses.