Al Pacino Awarded OSC's Oxford Prize

The Tribeca-based Oxford Shakespeare Company recently awarded veteran actor Al Pacino with The Oxford Prize, given in honor of the actor's outstanding artistic achievements in bringing Shakespeare to the public.  Mr. Pacino received this honor at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park where he was performing Shylock in The Public Theater's production of THE MERCHANT OF VENICE.  Pacino's highly-acclaimed performance and the critically acclaimed production is now bound for a Broadway run at the Broadhurst Theatre Oct 19 - Jan 9.

The Oxford Shakespeare Company, which has plans to build a New York City Globe Theatre in Lower Manhattan, will next month present the American premiere of the newly-accepted Shakespeare play DOUBLE FALSEHOOD.

DOUBLE FALSEHOOD: OR THE DISTREST LOVERS, whose authenticity has been debated for years, is a romantic tragicomedy based upon the Cardenio story from Cervantes' Don Quixote. 

In 1613, it was recorded that a William Shakespeare-John Fletcher collaboration, THE HISTORY OF CARDENIO, was performed at court.  One hundred and fourteen years later, Shakespeare scholar Lewis Theobald presented his adaptation of the play, which he had claimed was based upon three original manuscripts, which were presumably never shown to anyone else, and were soon after lost.  Some claim Theobald was a forger, but, according to editors of the prestigious Arden Shakespeare Series, recent linguistic and stylistic analysis lends support to Shakespeare's having had a hand in the script. 

New Yorkers will get their first opportunity to see this play on September 11th and 12th and judge for themselves whether or not it bears the ink drops of the Bard's great pen. 

The Oxford Shakespeare Company currently presents a different Shakespeare play each month at its temporary home at 74 Warren Street in Tribeca.  Supporters for the theatre company, which is under the artistic direction of Kennedy Center award-winner Ron Song Destro, and its plans to build an Elizabethan replica center, include award-winning actors from Olivia de Havilland, Maggie Smith and Judi Dench to F Murray Abraham, Michael York and Derek Jacobi.  For further information see OSCtheatre.org.