American Shakespeare Center Presents 2010/11 Restless Ecstasy Tour

The American Shakespeare Center, based at the Blackfriars Playhouse, presents three plays on its 2010/2011 Restless Ecstasy Tour: As You Like It, Macbeth, and Measure for Measure.

The Restless Ecstasy troupe is scheduled to perform at venues throughout the United States from September through November of this year and then again from January through March, 2011. In April, the troupe will return to Staunton to present the spring season at the Blackfriars Playhouse through the middle of June.

"It is a remarkable thing to be able to perform Shakespeare for such diverse communities. We bring our rotating repertory of three great Shakespeare plays to universities and performing arts centers in big cities and in very small towns," said Jim Warren, ASC Artistic Director. "I have the best job in the world. I get to wake up each morning and work with great people on these remarkable plays. Words matter, and we are in the business of bringing life, bringing passion to some of the greatest words ever written...and we get to bring those brilliant words to audiences hundreds of miles away from our home theatre."

Warren directs all three ASC on Tour productions this year, beginning with As You Like It. To escape death, the extraordinary Rosalind, her brave cousin Celia, and one of Shakespeare's funniest fools flee into the woods. There, in the bewitching Forest of Arden, they discover shepherds and aristocrats, country folk and lovers-and, ultimately, life, love, joy, and freedom. Shakespeare's glorious and wise comedy reminds us of everything it is to be alive.

Macbeth is the second offering of the ASC's Restless Ecstasy Tour. From the first words of the play until the title character loses his head, Shakespeare's shortest tragedy is his most unrelenting examination of the dark side of humanity. Driven to bloody deeds by their lust for power, Macbeth and his Lady tragically struggle to hold on to their sanity, and to each other.

The final play from the ASC on Tour this year is Measure for Measure. Shakespeare's electrifying exploration of the arrogance of power hovers tantalizingly between comedy and tragedy. Measure stares unblinkingly into the way we confuse lust and love, goodness and self-righteousness; and it manages an unforgettably ironic look at who sins most in a congregation of murderers, pimps, politicians, whores, nuns, and dukes.

"It is a joy for me to direct some of the best actors in the country in these plays and I know it is a joy for audiences to come see the same actor play wildly diverse roles in each of the plays," says Warren. "On Friday you can see a actor play Isabella in Measure for Measure, and on Saturday see her play the wonderful Celia at a matinee of As You Like It, and a witch, a little boy, and a murderer that evening in Macbeth. Rotating repertory is seriously great fun."

During its break from traveling in December, the Restless Ecstasy troupe will return to its home base at the Blackfriars Playhouse to perform an original adaptation of A Christmas Carol, based on the Dickens classic, in repertory with The Santaland Diaries by NPR humorist and best-selling author David Sedaris, and The Twelve Dates of Christmas, a romantic one-woman comedy written and performed by ASC actor Ginna Hoben. For a complete tour schedule, please visit www.ASCstaunton.com.

About the American Shakespeare Center on Tour

The internationally acclaimed American Shakespeare Center is based in Staunton, Va. and seeks to recover the joys and accessibility of Shakespeare's theatre, language, and humanity by exploring the English Renaissance stage and its practices through performance and education. From its base at the Blackfriars Playhouse, the world's only re-creation of Shakespeare's indoor theatre, the touring ensemble performs using Renaissance staging conditions, offering audiences many of the visceral and communal experiences that an Elizabethan playgoer would have enjoyed. The ASC has toured 47 U.S. states, one U.S. territory, and five other countries with performances hailed by The Washington Post as "shamelessly entertaining" and by The Boston Globe as "phenomenal...bursting with energy." Founded in 1988 as Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, the organization became the American Shakespeare Center in 2005 and can be found online at www.ASCstaunton.com.

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