Bad Quarto Productions Stages Earliest Known Version of HAMLET, Beginning Tonight

Bad Quarto Productions, a theatre company specializing in performing modern theatre using Shakespearean staging techniques, will stage the first quarto of HAMLET, the earliest printed version of Shakespeare's most famous play.

Printed in 1603, the first quarto of HAMLET was published just a year before the first of the more familiar printings of the play. Shorter, faster paced, and more action packed than the second quarto and First Folio versions, the first quarto of HAMLET forces us to reconsider what we know about both HAMLET and Shakespeare as a dramatist.

Directed by Bad Quarto Productions' Artistic Director Tony Tambasco, HAMLET is the story of murder, incest, and revenge brought to life by Bad Quarto Productions' signature style of combining modern text work with Shakespeare's staging conditions. Our performance combines Shakespeare's language with the liveliness of improv.

HAMLET will play at Studios 353 (353 W. 48th St., New York) from tonight, March 26th, through April 10th on the following days and times:

Saturday, March 26th: 8 PM
Sunday, March 27th: 8 PM
Friday, April 1st: 8 PM
Saturday. April 2nd: 8 PM
Sunday, April 3rd: 8 PM
Friday, April 8th: 8 PM
Saturday, April 9th: 8 PM
Sunday, April 10th: 2 PM

The house opens 20 minutes before curtain times, and HAMLET has an approximately 120 minute running time. Come early and enjoy live music performed by the cast.

For tickets and more information, visit www.BadQuarto.org. Questions may be directed to Director Tony Tambasco at tony@badquarto.org, or by calling Bad Quarto's box office at (646) 598-2128 between 10 AM and 6 PM.

Of HAMLET, Tambasco says "at a time when theatre companies are increasingly turning to the classics to find meaning in our postmodern world, there's Q1 HAMLET, the first, best reminder that we don't know this Shakespeare fellow nearly as well as we like to imagine. It's a message in a bottle from 1603 that forces us to confront that 'to be or not to be' is not necessarily a question at all, and invites us to admit a wider array of responses."

Bad Quarto Productions was founded in 2010 to explore the rarely performed plays of Shakespeare's time, and the ways in which Shakespeare's staging techniques can inform modern theatrical productions. The company has produced the earliest printed version of Romeo and Juliet and The Taming of a Shrew ("a shrew" not "the shrew"); the first performance of The Merry Devil of Edmonton in the modern era; and The Ballad of Dido, an original musical developed using Shakespearean techniques. Bad Quarto's performance style has found favor with audiences wherever we've played, and we continue to look for new ways of bridging the gap between Shakespeare's theatre and our own.

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