Shaw's SAINT JOAN Comes To Access Theater 3/9
George Bernard Shaw's SAINT JOAN will have a limited engagement at Access Theater March 9 – April 1, 2012. Saint Joan, which has taxed the resources of major repertory companies, will be performed in its entirety by an ensemble of only four actors and will be presented by BEDLAM. This is BEDLAM's inaugural production in New York City.
Considered by many to be Shaw's greatest play and one of the greatest plays ever written, SAINT JOAN earned him the Nobel Prize in 1925. In this boldly theatrical, four person production we witness the Joan of Arc that Shaw intended––not a saint, a witch, or a madwoman––but a farm girl who is anything but simple; an illiterate intellectual, a true genius whose focus on the individual rocked the Church and State to their core. BEDLAM's presentation will mark the first time in 19 years that Saint Joan has been staged professionally in New York City, where the play celebrated it's World Premier in 1923.
The production will be directed by Eric Tucker (Tina Packer's WOMEN OF WILL, HAMLET starring William Hurt, and MACBETH in Los Angeles [Nominated: Best Overall Production, Best Direction, LA Weekly], as well as PINTER'S MIRROR [Berkshire Theatre Critics Top Ten Director and Production of the Year, 2009] at Shakespeare & Company in MA; and BELLE OF BELFAST at The Cherry Lane).
Andrus Nichols (HAMLET [title role, in the site-specific production that used all of Alcatraz Island in San Francisco last season]) is slated to play Joan. All twenty-three of the other roles will be performed by three actors: Tom O'Keefe (A HARD WALL AT HIGH SPEED, THE TASTER [Shakespeare & Company]), Ted Lewis, and Tucker, himself. Katharine Goodland will serve as dramaturge, and the production will be stage managed by Sarah Nochenson.
This year, 2012, is the 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc's birth.
SAINT JOAN will run Off-Broadway at the Access Theater in TriBeCa (380 Broadway, at White Street). It opens March 9th and is scheduled to close April 1st, with performances at 7pm Tuesdays–Sundays. For tickets, visit: www.theatreBEDLAM.org
"BEDLAM is a company committed to large ideas, modest budgets and the immediacy of the relationship between the actor and the audience. We create theatre in a flexible, raw space and are interested in new writing, contemporary reappraisals of the classics and small-scale musical theatre. We believe that innovative use of space can remove aesthetic distance and bring the audience into direct contact with the dangers and delicacies of life––inciting laughter and chaos, exciting thinking and recreating the thrill of lived experience."
Videos