The Public Theater To Launch New Shakespeare Platform: THE MOBILE UNIT

The same time The Public Theater is in previews for Daniel Sullivan's acclaimed production of The Merchant of Venice on Broadway, The Public Theater announced it would expand its Shakespeare Initiative to include a new platform for the production of Shakespeare's works: THE MOBILE UNIT.

Designed to bring the highest caliber professional productions of Shakespeare, free of charge, to audiences with little or no access to major New York City arts institutions, THE MOBILE UNIT will tour MEASURE FOR MEASURE, directed by Michelle Hensley, to correctional facilities, homeless shelters, facilities for battered and abused women, drug rehab facilities, senior centers, centers for youth-at-risk, and other social service organizations that support the disadvantaged, underserved, and marginalized.

Following the two week tour in November, MEASURE FOR MEASURE will play the historic Judson Memorial Church on Washington Square in Greenwich Village from December 6 through December 11. Tickets are $15 and will go on sale in early November.

The Public Theater will produce MEASURE FOR MEASURE in association with the nationally acclaimed Minneapolis theater company Ten Thousand Things Theater, of which Michelle Hensley is the founder and artistic director. For 20 years, Ten Thousand Things has brought productions of Shakespeare and other works to underserved audiences and institutions throughout the Twin Cities, and has become a nationwide model for such work.

The cast features Rob Campbell, Carson Elrod, Meg Gibson, Shalita Grant, William Jackson Harper, Jackie Sanders Hayes, Ruy Iskandar, Lanna Joffrey and Nicole Lewis.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE tells the story of a Duke who goes undercover to investigate the behavior of a deputy and to observe the lives of the assorted citizenry, from prostitutes and bawds to high level judges and administrators. The play is a look at the vexing difficulties that attend the fair administration of justice. Ten Thousand Things first performed MEASURE FOR MEASURE in the Twin Cities 12 years ago and found that its low-income audiences, most of whom must daily endure the judgments and injustice of others, deeply connected with Shakespeare's tale.

THE MOBILE UNIT'S inaugural tour will take place November 22 through December 4 at the following venues:
Arthur Kill Correctional Facility, Staten Island, a medium-security New York State men's prison (November 23)

Susan's Place, Bronx, a shelter for battered and homeless women (November 26)

Bayview Correctional Facility, Manhattan, a medium-security New York State women's prison (November 30)

Jamaica Service Program for Older Adults (JSPOA), Queens, a center for the elderly (December 1)

Fortune Society, Queens, a provider of services for recently released convicts (December 2)

Central High School / Boys & Girls Club of Newark, Newark, NJ, a major inner-city high school and a service organization for youth-at-risk (December 3)
Additional touring venues to be announced shortly.

THE MOBILE UNIT will also present educational workshops at the venues it visits, expanding The Public Theater's existing community outreach and education program. This new program will represent a major expansion of The Public's Shakespeare Initiative, and add to Shakespeare in the Park and Shakespeare at The Public a significant platform for The Public's ongoing exploration of Shakespeare's canon.

"It's our job to make sure that culture is for all the people, not just the educated or wealthy or lucky. Shakespeare belongs to everybody. Michelle Hensley is an astonishing artist, and her version of Measure for Measure evokes with laser-like precision the themes of justice, hypocrisy and arbitrary law enforcement that lie at the heart of Shakespeare's brilliant play. No one can see her work in interaction with an incarcerated audience and doubt that culture is as essential as breathing to the human soul," said Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. "We are also deeply proud to be partnering with Judson Memorial Church, which for generations has shared our values of social activism, artistic engagement and spiritual inclusivity. It's time we made common cause with our Greenwich Village neighbor, and we hope that this is just the start of a long collaboration."

"The mandate to bring great Shakespeare for free to all New Yorkers is encoded in the very DNA of The Public Theater," said Public Theater Shakespeare Initiative Director Barry Edelstein. "The Mobile Unit expresses this mandate in its purest form, and makes our work available to important new audiences we've not reached before."

"We're so delighted at The Public Theater's commitment to exploring the unique approach to performing Shakespeare that Ten Thousand Things has developed over the past 20 years," said Director Michelle Hensley. "Reaching out to first-time theater goers, people in prisons and homeless shelters -- many of whom live at the extremes of human existence, like the characters in Shakespeare's plays -- has helped us create theater that is lively, urgent and engaging for veteran theater-goers as well."

"Throughout history, theater has been more than entertainment; it has been a means of political critique, a lever for social change, and an occasion for spiritual enlightenment," said Michael Ellick, Minister of Judson Memorial Church. "Here again The Public is bringing theater to the people, and Judson couldn't be happier to be teaming up with them toward this end."

Michelle Hensley (Director) is the founder and Artistic Director of Ten Thousand Things Theater, where she has directed and produced over 40 tours to low-income audiences in prisons, shelters and housing projects, as well as for the general public. Most productions make local critics annual Top Ten lists, including Brecht's The Good Person of Szechwan, Greek tragedies like The Furies, Electra and Antigone, The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, The Tempest, Cymbeline, Richard III and Twelfth Night and musicals like The Unsinkable Molly Brown, The Most Happy Fella, Ragtime and The Little Shop of Horrors. Hensley has been awarded the Minnesota State Arts Board Fellowship, a McKnight Theater Artist Fellowship, named City Pages Theater Artist of the Year and Best Director in multiple years (2001, 2004, 2006 and 2010), received a 2010 Ivey award (for Othello), and is a winner of the Francesca Primus Prize, an annual award given by the American Theater Critics Association for outstanding contribution to the American theater by a female artist.

The Public Theater (Oskar Eustis, Artistic Director; Andrew D. Hamingson, Executive Director) was founded by Joseph Papp in 1954 and is now one of the nation's preeminent cultural institutions, producing new plays, musicals, and productions of classics at its downtown headquarters and at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park. The Public's mandate to create a theater for all New Yorkers continues to this day onstage and through extensive outreach and education programs. Each year, over 250,000 people attend Public Theater-related productions and events at six downtown stages, including Joe's Pub, and Shakespeare in the Park. The Public has won 42 Tony Awards, 151 Obies, 41 Drama Desk Awards and four Pulitzer Prizes. The Public has brought 54 shows to Broadway, including Sticks and Bones; That Championship Season; A Chorus Line; The Pirates of Penzance; The Tempest; Bring In 'Da Noise, Bring In 'Da Funk; On the Town; The Ride Down Mt. Morgan; Topdog/Underdog; Elaine Stritch at Liberty; Take Me Out; Caroline, or Change; Well; Passing Strange; the Tony Award-winning revival of Hair; and this fall, the rock musical Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson and the 2010 Shakespeare in the Park production of The Merchant of Venice.

TEN THOUSAND THINGS THEATER is known across the country for its unique model of bringing the highest quality theater to audiences in prisons, homeless shelters and housing projects, while engaging and exciting veteran theatergoers as well. Its productions of Richard III, Cyrano de Bergerac, Antigone, The Merchant of Venice, and Othello, as well as Ragtime, The Three Lives of Lucie Cabrol, The Unsinkable Molly Brown and The Little Shop of Horrors have all been named Outstanding Production of the Year by local theater critics; almost all its shows make the local Top Ten lists. The Star Tribune recently proclaimed that "Ten Thousand Things produces the community's best Shakespeare." Just this year, the company was named Best Small Theater in the Twin Cities by City Pages.
JUDSON MEMORIAL CHURCH has been for 120 years a home for avant garde artists, activists and progressive spirituality. The Judson community has long been celebrating radical creativity and freedom of expression in the belief that challenging, provocative art makes life worth living. And Judson defends the rights of the marginalized, the victimized, and the unpopular in the belief that protecting those rights protects all our right to a full and meaningful life.

TICKET INFORMATION

MEASURE FOR MEASURE runs December 6-11at Judson Memorial Church with performances Monday through Saturday at 8 PM. Tickets are $15 for all performances and go on sale in early November. For more information, please visit www.publictheater.org.

Judson Memorial Church is located at 55 Washington Square South.

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