Chicago Shakespeare Theater Announces 2011 Winter/Spring Calendar

Chicago Shakespeare Theater (CST) rings in the New Year with William Shakespeare's As You Like It, staged by CST's Associate Artistic Director Gary Griffin. Additional productions outlined in the 2011 Winter/Spring Calendar below are the New York, Chicago and Australia engagements of CST's acclaimed Funk It Up About Nothin'; from Ireland, Druid Theatre Company's The Cripple of Inishmaan; National Theatre of Scotland's award-winning Black Watch; an abridgement of Shakespeare's Macbeth especially for families, Short Shakespeare! Macbeth; and The Madness of George III by Tony Award-winning playwright Alan Bennett. Further information for all of the productions listed below is available on Chicago Shakespeare Theater's website at www.chicagoshakes.com or by calling the CST Box Office at 312.595.5600.

As You Like It
January 5?March 6, 2011 in CST's Courtyard Theater
Press images available here >
Chicago Shakespeare Theater rings in the New Year with William Shakespeare's romantic comedy As You Like It, staged by CST's Associate Artistic Director Gary Griffin. The Acting Company for Griffin's lush production includes a host of Chicago Shakespeare favorites who have collectively performed over 100 roles at CST. Griffin celebrates his ten-year anniversary at Chicago Shakespeare this season, an illustrious history that includes his acclaimed CST Laurence Olivier and Joseph Jefferson Award-winning Sondheim musicals and productions of Private Lives and Amadeus.

Funk It Up About Nothin'
January 8, 2011 at Joe's Pub at The Public Theater in New York
January 21?February 13, 2011 Upstairs at Chicago Shakespeare
On tour in Australia February 23?April 2, 2011
Press images available here >
Chicago Shakespeare's award-winning Funk It Up About Nothin'?an exuberant hip-hop "ad-rap-tation" of William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing?will thrill audiences in New York City, Chicago and Australia in the New Year. Co-creators and Directors GQ and JQ (The Q Brothers) premiered the show at Chicago Shakespeare in 2008, garnering the Jeff Award for Outstanding Ensemble, and return with their smash-hit rhythms and rhymes for the 2011 performances.

Short Shakespeare! Macbeth
January 22?March 5, 2011 in CST's Courtyard Theater
In this 75-minute abridged production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, Director and Adaptor David H. Bell uses a theatrical, percussive world of swords, sound and the supernatural to make Shakespeare's language come alive for the CST Family Series. The production will play Saturdays at 11 a.m.

From Ireland:
Druid Theatre Company's
The Cripple of Inishmaan
March 16?27, 2011 in CST's Courtyard Theater
Press images available here >
Druid Theatre Company returns to CST's World's Stage with its celebrated production of The Cripple of Inishmaan by Tony Award-winning playwright Martin McDonagh (The Pillowman). In this darkly comic story staged by Druid Artistic Director Garry Hynes, the sleepy town of Inishmaan and its residents are electrified by the arrival of a Hollywood film crew making a documentary. "Cripple" Billy Claven vies for a part in the film and gets a shot at stardom.

From Scotland:
National Theatre of Scotland's
Black Watch
March 29?April 10, 2011 at Chicago's Broadway Armory (5917 N. Broadway)
Press images available here >
Named the "#1 Theatrical Event of the Year" by The New York Times, Black Watch is an environmental, intensely physical production exploring the legendary Scottish regiment. The Armory will set the scene for this World's Stage production incorporating stories based on playwright Gregory Burke's interviews with former soldiers who served in Iraq. The production is directed by John Tiffany, associate director of National Theatre of Scotland, with movement by Steven Hoggett, co-founder and artistic director of Frantic Assembly (London), whose choreography for Green Day's American Idiot is now playing on Broadway.

The Madness of George III
April 13?June 12, 2011 in CST's Courtyard Theater
The 2010/11 Subscription Series concludes with The Madness of George III by Alan Bennett, the Laurence Olivier and Tony Award-winning playwright of The History Boys. This masterpiece of royal intrigue about a monarch's slide into insanity will be directed by Penny Metropolus, whose work has been seen for nearly two decades at Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The production marks Metropolus' return to CST, where she staged The Two Gentlemen of Verona in 2000.

 

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