Theatre for a New Audience announces that as part of its 2016-2017 season at Polonsky Shakespeare Center, Golden Globe Award winner Oscar Isaac will play the title role in Hamlet staged by Sam Gold. Oscar Isaac and Sam Gold last worked together on Zoe Kazan's We Live Here in 2011. Hamlet is their first collaboration on Shakespeare and their first production with Theatre for a New Audience. Hamlet will begin previews on June 4, 2017 for an opening June 22 and run through July 30.
Jeffrey Horowitz, Founding Artistic Director, explains, "Hamlet's famous remark that 'the purpose of playing' is 'to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature' describes Oscar Isaac's and Sam Gold's work. Oscar is celebrated for the honesty, authenticity, and intensity of his performances, and Hamlet marks his long-desired return to theatre after an impressive series of starring film and television roles. Sam is renowned for the transparent subtlety and nuance of the theatrical worlds he creates, Together Oscar Isaac and Sam Gold will explore the 'undiscovered country' of Hamlet's world which begins, of course, with the first words of the play, 'Who's there?'"Oscar Isaac gained critical acclaim, a Golden Globe Award nomination, and an Independent Spirit Award for "Best Male Lead" for his portrayal of the title character in the Coen Brothers' film Inside Llewyn Davis. His talents extend into television as he starred in the HBO miniseries Show Me A Hero for which he won a Golden Globe Award for "Best Actor in a Miniseries or Television Film" and a Critics' Choice Television Award nomination for "Best Actor in a Movie or Miniseries." In 2014, Mr. Isaac led J.C. Chandor's action-packed drama A Most Violent Year for which he earned the National Board of Review Award for "Best Actor." Most recently, Mr. Isaac starred as the Resistance pilot, Poe Dameron, in the record-shattering Star Wars: The Force Awakens, and he is currently filming the eighth installment in the main Star Wars film series. Mr. Isaac can next be seen as the villain in the highly anticipated blockbuster,X-Men: Apocalypse due for release in May 2016.Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, Theatre for a New Audience is a modern classic theatre. It produces Shakespeare alongside other major authors from the world repertoire, such as Harley Granville Barker, Edward Bond, Adrienne Kennedy, Wallace Shawn, and Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Theatre for a New Audience has played Off- and on Broadway and toured nationally and internationally.
In 2001, Theatre for a New Audience became the first American theatre invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Stratford-upon-Avon. Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, premiered at the RSC; in 2007, Theatre for a New Audience was invited to return to the RSC with The Merchant of Venice directed by Darko Tresnjak starring F. Murray Abraham. In 2011, Mr. Abraham reprised his role as Shylock for a national tour. After 35 years of being itinerant and playing mostly 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). The Theatre's productions have been honored with Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Lortel and Audelco awards and nominations and reach an audience diverse in age, economics and cultural background. The Theatre created and runs the largest in-depth program in the New York City Public Schools to introduce students to Shakespeare, and has served more than 128,000 students since the program began in 1984. The Theatre's economically accessible ticket program includes one of the lowest reserved ticket prices for youth in the city: $20 for any show, any time for those 30 years old and under or for full-time students of any age.Videos