FRIGID New York to Present THE 3RD ANNUAL LITTLE SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL in August

FRIGID New York will present their 3rd annual Little Shakespeare Festival at UNDER St. Marks (94 St Marks Pl, New York, NY 10009), August 3-20. Tickets ($25 in-person; $20 streaming) are available for advance purchase at www.frigid.nyc. Most performances will also be available to live stream from home.   

This year the Little Shakespeare Festival is doing Shakespeare (and Shakespeare-inspired) performances that celebrate or center gender diversity in the Bard's canon. These might be shows where roles traditionally played by cis men are opened to all genders, where male characters have their gender changed, bent, or broken, or where non-male characters usually left to the sidelines are brought into the spotlight.

Shrew You!

Presented by Hamlet Isn't Dead

A fast and funny reimagining of Taming of the Shrew with 4 actors. These actors will play versions of themselves and work towards "fixing" Taming of the Shrew. The roles are gender swapped as well in the hopes of reexamining the importance of gender in the original text. It is fast, funny, and rooted in the pillars of Hamlet Isn't Dead; accessibility, joy, and musically vibrant.   

Double Bill:

Shakespeare's Deaths & Shakespeare's Ladies at Tea

Presented by First Flight Theatre Company

The First Flight Theatre Company will present a Shakespearian double bill!  In Shakespeare's Deaths 5 actors will act out all the deaths found in the plays by William Shakespeare in 15 minutes, maybe 10. Shakespeare's Ladies at Tea is a sketch of what might happen if eight Shakespearean ladies were to get together for tea. Each character is only able to speak the lines the Bard gave her, and the women are at first embarrassed and uncertain what to say at all, but Cleopatra is fearless and Lady Macbeth keeps things rolling along pretty well: in all the party is a triumph.

Lady Capulet

Presented by Barefoot Shakespeare Company

What caused the feud between the Montagues and the Capulets? This prequel to Romeo and Juliet follows the story of Rose from country girl to lady of Verona and explores the betrayal, revenge, and manipulations that set the houses of Capulet and Montague against one another in a time when the influence of family, money, power, and gender determine everything. Using evocative language, Lady Capulet asks large questions about women's place in culture today through a Shakespearean lens.

As You Will

Created by Conor D Mullen, David Brummer & George Hider

Friends, foes, fools! Do you ever bemoan the fact that the 884,647 words William Shakespeare wrote have been performed already? Do you yearn for the experience of seeing The Bard's works for the first time? Then celebrate the glad tidings of As You Will and our Unscripted Shakespeare Show! These Shakespearean Scholars are here to present all the monumental works the immortal Bard would've written if he hadn't gone and died. With just the title given by the audience the players of As You Will bring a Shakespearean comedy to life complete with Shakspeare's themes, language, poetic verse, and some scholarly footnotes thrown in for good measure. As You Will have performed such classics as "Eight Merry Spiders," "That Doth Not Go There," "1601: A Space Odyssey'' and though those shows will never be seen again, there's always a Shakespearean world premiere in our makeshift Globe Theatre. 

FRIGID New York's mission is to provide both emerging and established artists the opportunity to create and produce original work of varied content, form, and style, and to amplify their diverse voices. We do this by presenting an array of monthly programming, mainstage productions, an artist residency, and eight annual theater festivals that create an environment of collaboration, resourcefulness, and innovation. Founded in 1998, the aim was and is to form a structure, allowing multiple artists to focus on creating and staging new work and providing affordable rental space to scores of independent artists. Now in our third decade we have produced a massive quantity of stimulating downtown theater. www.frigid.nyc   

Photo Credit: Giancarlo Osaben