Red Bull Theater to Continue Revelation Readings With THE INN AT LYDDA

Red Bull Theater has revealed the cast for the next offering of a new season of OBIE Award-winning Revelation Readings: the in-person presentation of The Inn at Lydda, a Meeting of Caesar and Christ, by John Wolfson, directed by Ben Prusiner. This event will premiere live and in-person Monday, November 13 at 7:30pm at Leonard Nimoy Thalia at Peter Norton Symphony Space. Featured in the cast will be Samuel Adams (Amadeus - The Folger), Amir Arison (Broadway: The Kite Runner, NBC's “The Blacklist”), Rajesh Bose (Broadway: Life of Pi; Indian Ink - Roundabout), Teagle Bougere (Coriolanus, Cymbeline, Julius Caesar - Public Theater), Leovina Charles (Lempicka - La Jolla Playhouse), Joe Holt ("The Walking Dead: Homecoming"), Anthony Michael Martinez (Romeo & Juliet - CSC, I'll Be Damned -Vineyard), Alfredo Narciso (Broadway: The Motherf**ker with the Hat, Time and the Conways, A Streetcar Named Desire),  Christopher Joel Onken (Broadway: The Inheritance), Jay O. Sanders (Broadway: Purlie Victorious, Girl from the North Country, Pygmalion, Saint Joan, Caine Mutiny Court-Martial), and Sam Tsoutsouvas (The Changeling,  The Witch of Edmonton - Red Bull Theater; Broadway: Our Country's Good).

First produced at Shakespeare's Globe in 2016, Red Bull presents the American premiere of John Wolfson's drama of hubris versus humility, drawn from biblical apocrypha and presented in modern verse, depicting a face-to-face meeting between Caesar and Christ. In The Inn at Lydda, the mortally ill Roman emperor Tiberius Caesar, hearing tales of a miraculous healer in the province of Judea, sets sail for Jerusalem for an audience with Jesus. Pausing en route in the nearby city of Lydda, he learns of the Nazarene's crucifixion only a few days earlier and is devastated, not realizing that an event later known as the Resurrection will make the meeting he seeks a possibility.

Revelation Readings offer the unique opportunity to hear rarely-produced classic plays, and brand new plays in conversation with the classics, performed by the finest actors in New York. This year's slate of readings is sure to delight audiences all season long. 

Future Revelation Readings will take place online and in-person at various venues around NYC, and will include:  

·   Monday, January 22nd at 7:30pm - Online and In Person at Playwrights Horizons Peter Jay Sharp Theater:

The Revenge by Edward Young, directed by Nathan Winkelstein

Featuring Matthew Rauch

In partnership with the Mellon Foundation sponsored “On Decolonizing Theatre” Seminar at Northwestern University, and the R/18 Collective

Immensely popular in the late 18th and early 19th century, this potboiler tells a tale that Shakespeare audiences will recognize - a general and his new bride manipulated to tragic ends by a supposed friend. But in this tale, it is the Moor, Zanga, seeking righteous vengeance on the hated conquerors of his people, who fulfills the role of the friend turned traitor. The fiery Zanga, a favorite role of both Ira Aldridge and Edmund Kean, finally gets his return to the spotlight.

 

·  Monday, February 19th at 7:30pm - Online and In Person at Florence Gould Hall at FIAF

The Imaginary Invalid by Molière, adapted by Jeffrey Hatcher, directed by Jesse Berger

Featuring Mark Linn-Baker

In partnership with the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF).

In Molière's best loved comedy, Monsieur Argan is a notorious hypochondriac whose nonexistent illnesses blind him to the con men and women (his new wife) who prey on his fears to fatten their purses. His plan: marry his daughter to a doctor so he'll have free round-the-clock on-site healthcare for the rest of his life. Newly translated by Mirabelle Ordinaire and adapted for Red Bull by Jeffrey Hatcher, The Imaginary Invalid is a brilliant satire of doctors, lawyers, and would-be patients who take self-care to staggering levels of pathological solipsism.  A comic whirlwind of pills, lovers, therapies, disguises, vaccinations, impersonations, masks, mindfulness and miracle cures.

 

·   Monday, March 25th at 7:30pm - In Person Only at Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater

Antony & Cleopatra by William Shakespeare

Presented in partnership with The Acting Company

Featuring John Douglas Thompson

In this classic Jacobean tragedy of love and duty Cleopatra, the Egyptian Queen and the Roman general Marc Antony scandalize Egypt and Rome alike through their passionate love affair, setting off a chain of broken alliances, jealous rages and civil war that reverberate through the known world in one of Shakespeare's greatest historical love stories.

 

·  Monday, April 29th at 7:30pm – Online & In Person at Playwrights Horizons Mainstage Theater

The Tempest by William Shakespeare, directed by Jesse Berger, 

Featuring Patrick Page (Hadestown, The Lion King)

A shipwreck, a magical island, and a tale of love, revenge, and inheritance frame Shakespeare's final, and one of his most beloved plays. Prospero, the unjustly deposed Duke of Milan, holds sway over the island home of his exile through command of the magical arts, raising his daughter Miranda in isolation save for the island's creatures and spirits, until a storm washes ashore a cadre of visitors whose arrival portends danger, romance, and reconciliation.

Tickets are now on sale for The Inn at Lydda. All other events will go on sale at later dates.   

 

About John Wolfson

John Wolfson occupies the position of Curator of Rare books at The Globe Theatre in London.  His play The Inn at Lydda was produced by the Globe at the Sam Wanamaker Theatre in September of 2016.  His play The Lives of Bosie about Lord Alfred Douglas, was produced at the Hedgerow Theatre in Philadelphia where it won a Barrymore Award as the most distinguished new play of the season.  The Don, a play dealing with drug smuggling on the Mexican border, was also produced at Hedgerow.  Other plays done in workshop include The Peace Creeps with Al Pacino and James Earl Jones, Jimmy Paradise with Sam Waterston, and The Lives of Avelar, a reading with Morgan Freeman.  Other plays by Mr. Wolfson have been presented by Playwrights Horizons and Break a Leg Productions.  John Wolfson's annual talk on Shakespeare is a popular feature of The Globe Theatre's summer education program.

 

 

About Ben Prusiner

Ben Prusiner is passionate about plays of heightened language, especially those of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. He aims to bring the language vibrantly to life with staging and designs that are imaginative, metaphorical and theatrical. Ben has directed Broadway regulars as well as community casts and young people of all ages. He believes theatre should be surprising, thrilling, and shamelessly political. Ben holds an MA in Drama Directing from the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School and an MA in Applied Theatre from the City University of New York. Originally from California, he has worked extensively in New York and in the UK, as well as in India, Italy and Japan. He currently lives in Bristol.

 

ABOUT RED BULL THEATER

Red Bull Theater, hailed as “the city's gutsiest classical theater” by Time Out New York, brings rarely seen classic plays to dynamic new life for contemporary audiences, uniting a respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that illegally performed plays in England during the years of Puritan rule, Red Bull Theater is New York City's home for dynamic performances of great plays that stand the test of time. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, the company also produces new works that are in conversation with the classics. A home for artists, scholars, and students, Red Bull Theater delights and engages the intellect and imagination of audiences, and strives to make its work accessible, diverse, and welcoming to all. We value and practice inclusiveness, equity, and diversity in all of our activities, and are committed to antiracist action. Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and plays of heightened language to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique, collective experiences, and in the timeless capacity of classical theater to illuminate the events of our times. Variety agreed, hailing Red Bull's work as: “Proof that classical theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years.”

Since its debut in 2003 with a production of Shakespeare's Pericles starring Daniel Breaker, Red Bull Theater has served adventurous theatergoers with Off-Broadway productions, Revelation Readings, and the annual Short New Play Festival. The company also offers outreach programs including Shakespeare in Schools bringing professional actors and teaching artists into public school classrooms; Bull Sessions, free post-play discussions with top scholars; and Classical Acting Intensives led by veteran theater professionals. During the pandemic, Red Bull created several new and ongoing programs to serve audiences and artists with our mission: RemarkaBULL Podversations, Online Readings, Seminars, and more.

"The classics-shaking Red Bull Theater,” as Time Out NY has called it, has produced 24 Off-Broadway productions and over 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists and providing quality artistic programming to an audience of over 65,000. The company's unique programming has received ongoing critical acclaim and has been recognized with Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Off-Broadway Alliance, and OBIE nominations and Awards.

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