William Shakespeare News

Encore Players are set to host auditions at KVPAC for Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare.

The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. announced today that in celebration of the Statue of Liberty's upcoming 125th Anniversary on October 28th, Macy's has committed the proceeds from the sale of its newly recorded song 'Gift of Light' to benefit the Foundation's non-profit mission for projects at Liberty and Ellis Islands, working in partnership with the National Park Service.

Shakespeare in the Square, a student group at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, will perform William Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Macbeth for two performances, rain or shine, in Washington Square Park's Holley Plaza, Saturday, October 29 at 2:00 and 5:00 p.m

Encore Players are set to host auditions at KVPAC for Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare.

Beowulf Alley Theatre will present a contemporary adaptation of King Lear by William Shakespeare at the theatre, 11 South 6th Avenue for a 4-weekend run.

Queens Shakespeare Presents A Midsummer Night's Dream By William Shakespeare Performing in Saratoga Springs, NY Nov 4-5 @ 8PM, Nov 6 @ 2PM at Spa Little Theater in the Saratoga Spa State Park The American Theatre of Actors 19 Roosevelt Drive, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. Tickets are $20 at the Door and $15 for students and available at www.homemadetheater.org or by phone @ (518)-587-4427. It is performing in Manhattan Nov 11-12 @ 8PM, Nov 13 @ 2PM at 314 West 54th Street NYC, NY 10019. Tickets are $18.50 at the Door and are Available at www.smarttix.com or by phone @ (212)-868-4444 or (212)-581-3044.

Long Wharf Theatre completes its 2011-12 season offerings by adding a classic work by one of the world's great playwrights.

Today Producing Artistic Director Edward Stern announced his 20th - and final - season at Cincinnati Playhouse in the Park. The Playhouse' s 52nd season includes two world premieres and three regional premiere productions, as well as the return of one of the most popular musicals in its history.

Leviathan Lab, an Asian American professional creative studio invested in advancing the careers of Asian American artists, will present its inaugural production, Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT at Arclight Theatre at 152 West 71st Street, Level 1 between Broadway and Columbus Avenues in Manhattan, November 3 - 19 (Thursdays - Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m.; Wednesday, November 16 at 8 p.m.).

Leviathan Lab, an Asian American professional creative studio invested in advancing the careers of Asian American artists, will present its inaugural production, Shakespeare's TWELFTH NIGHT at Arclight Theatre at 152 West 71st Street, Level 1 between Broadway and Columbus Avenues in Manhattan, November 3 - 19 (Thursdays - Saturdays, 8 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m.; Wednesday, November 16 at 8 p.m.).

Founded in September of 1993, TeCo Theatrical Productions is an award-winning multicultural theatre company with IRC 501 (c)(3) tax exempt status. Their mission is to cultivate a diverse and vibrant arts community while creating sustainable opportunities for local and emerging artists through performances and education. Governed by seven board of directors, TeCo impacts more than 15,000 adults and children each year via our seasonal performances and student outreach programs.

Rep Stage, the professional Equity theatre in residence at Howard Community College (HCC), continues its 19th season with William Luce's 'Barrymore,' directed by Steven Carpenter ('Hysteria,' 'Mrs. Farnsworth').

American Repertory Theater (A.R.T.) continues its 2011-12 season with Three Pianos by Rick Burkhardt, Alec Duffy and Dave Malloy, with music from Franz Schubert's Winterreise, Op. 89, D911 (1828), directed by Rachel Chavkin.

Westport Country Playhouse will present two Script in Hand play readings this autumn with the classic whodunit, 'Dial ‘M' for Murder,' by Frederick Knott, on Monday, November 14, 7 p.m., and the delightfully touching comedy 'Holiday,' by Philip Barry, on Monday, December 12, 7 p.m. Tickets to the one-night-only events are $15.

Westport Country Playhouse will stage Shakespeare's beguiling comic masterpiece, 'Twelfth Night, or What You Will,' directed by Playhouse artistic director Mark Lamos, playing through November 5.

Bick Goss and Frank Evans, Producing Artistic Directors of Musical Mondays Theater Lab, Inc, and Stephen Hanks, MMTL Board President, have announced that the first new musical preview of their 2011-2012 season (the organization's 13th year of presenting new musicals) will be 'How to Marry a Divorced Man,' by Bryan D. Leys and Clare Cooper, based on best-selling novel How to Marry a Divorced Man by Leslie Fram.

The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) continues Season 27 with Hamlet, William Shakespeare's famously timeless tale of murder and revenge.

Did William Shakespeare really write all of those plays? Mere proposition of said query's relative validity is more often than not met with confused looks, pretentious stares and general disdain for even entertaining such edgy ideas. Yet, are the plays not too worldly and wordy for a middle-class man to have composed completely by himself - even an actor who owned his own theater, the Globe; as Shakespeare, the man, most certainly did (any way you tell it)? Does it take anything away from these great works to consider for a moment or two that perhaps there was at least some outside influence on the texts to these plays, many of which are often cited as the finest literary works in the English language - and a legitimate theory given the fact co-authorship was even admitted at the time insofar as PERICLES, TIMON OF ATHENS and others are concerned. The case of the authorship of Shakespeare's plays has been a hot-button topic amongst critics, scholars and many in academe for centuries - and it even reached the Supreme Court in 1987 - and it is only now, with the worldwide release of ANONYMOUS, that these issues are being taken on in a dramatically compelling and filmatic way - played out much like the plays of intrigue and betrayal amongst kings and queens that we have come to love so much from Shakespeare's works. At the end of the day - or, should I say, at the end of the play - does it really matter as long as what you have witnessed onstage or onscreen spoke to you in a special, memorable way? Does knowing the identity of the author really matter as long as the plays enacted have an affect? Such are only a few of the many controversial questions being posed by the filmmakers behind the new film ANONYMOUS, opening in movie theaters nationwide on October 28, foremost among them being the director of the film himself, Roland Emmerich and the screenwriter, John Orloff, who have been trying to get this project off the ground for the better part of a decade. Tales of stolen authorial identity are as old and oft-told as many of the Bard's greatest hits, so it should come as no surprise that ANONYMOUS manages to present the facts as entertainingly as the plays presented within it. After all, the battle of the Oxfordians versus the Stratfordians has a certain royal Shakespearean ring to it, does it not?