Brave New World Repertory Theatre Presents Free Family Festival to Celebrate Shakespeare's Birthday

Brooklyn's Brave New World Repertory Theatre announces Shakespeare on Stratford, a FREE family friendly birthday bash in honor of Will Shakespeare on Sunday, April 28th 2-4pm. In a h/t to Shakespeare's birthplace Stratford Upon Avon, the celebration is set to take place on Brooklyn's Stratford Road in Ditmas Park/East Flatbush.

The multi-faceted Shakespeare on Stratford festival will encourage attendees to wander from porch to porch (along Stratford Road from Cortelyou Road to Slocum Place), to hear 18 costumed actors perform some of the Bard's celebrated and lesser known sonnets (2pm) followed by a madrigal singalong (3pm) in the middle of the street with performers and audience members singing one of the period's most famous madrigals, Now is the Month of Maying. The festival culminates at 3:40pm with "courtly line dancers" filling the street and quickly evolving into Afro-Haitian dances celebrating Spring and re-birth.

Brave New World Rep's SHAKESPEARE ON STRATFORD Spring Festival takes place on Sunday, April 28 from 2-4pm.

Brave New World's Shakespeare on Stratford festival will take place one block from their longtime headquarters in Ditmas Park, a lovely tree- and porch-lined neighborhood that floods every spring with pink cherry blossoms, tulips and daffodils. Rain date is Sunday, May 5th.

"We're here both to celebrate spring and bridge the cultural, economic divide of the communities on either side of Flatbush Avenue," says BNW Producing Artistic Director/co-founder Claire Beckman. "Everyone should have access to theatre, music and dance so we hope our neighbors in Ditmas Park and East Flatbush will come together for this free secular celebration of spring."

For the Shakespeare on Stratford festival, Beckman will direct the sonnets, many performed by professional actors/company members. Music director for the madrigals is Nancy Shankman, of NYU Steinhardt where she serves as Director of NYU Steinhardt's Adult Chorus and was former director of the NYU Modern Madrigal Singers. Dance director-choreographer is Haitian-American multidisciplinary artist Sheila Anozier, currently on faculty at the Mark Morris Dance Center.