Chester Theatre Company Announces THE STORY OF KING LEAR

Chester Theatre Company (CTC) has announced its first virtual performance, The Story of King Lear, a 50-minute telling of the Shakespeare classic adapted and directed by CTC Producing Artistic Director Daniel Elihu Kramer. The show will air at 7:00pm (eastern) on Thursday, August 27, and will be available for viewing through Sunday, August 30. See www.chestertheatre.org for details on how and where to watch.

Stage, film and television veteran Michael Potts takes on the title role as Lear. Known to TV audiences for his arc as Brother Mouzone in the celebrated series The Wire, Potts is also in the upcoming film version of August Wilson's Ma Rainey's Black Bottom starring Viola Davis. Broadway audiences will know him from August Wilson's Jitney, and musicals The Prom, Book of Mormon, and Grey Gardens. Shelley Fort, who starred in CTC's 2016 production of The Mountaintop, returns to the CTC "stage" for her second appearance with the company. Fort has also appeared in productions at Trinity Repertory Theatre, La Mama, The Bushwick Starr and others. Most recently, she was in the Broadway National Tour of The Play That Goes Wrong. She's a graduate of Kenyon College and Brown/Trinity Rep. Berkshire Theatre Critics Association Award-winners Tara Franklin (CTC's Associate Artistic Director and star of last season's On the Exhale), and James Barry (CTC's The Aliens, The Night Alive, and Sister Play) also star.

The Story of King Lear features the actors playing multiple roles, and Kramer intends to be creative with the virtual platform. "We have been staying engaged through a range of activities. Now, it's time to make work for our audience. We are providing this performance free of charge, and we are relying on the support of our community and audience so that we can be there with them through this and when we can gather in person again. King Lear speaks to our moment with remarkable power. In difficult times, we turn for sustenance to stories that speak to our shared experience. Here at Chester Theatre Company we are bringing that vital act of story-telling to a virtual space, where we can still gather in community."