Red Bull Theater Continues the Revelation Readings with LOVE LIES A-BLEEDING

Red Bull Theater (Jesse Berger, Artistic Director | Jim Bredeson, Managing Director) today announced the cast for the next of the 2019-'20 season of REVELATION READINGS, its OBIE Award-winning series: Beaumont & Fletcher's Love Lies A-Bleeding, directed by Carl Cofield and featuring Zach Appelman, Susan Heyward, Ezra Knight, Dela Meskienyar, Howard Overshown, Bhavesh Patel, Amelia Pedlow, Cara Ricketts and more to be announced. This one-night-only event will take place on Monday December 16th at 7:30pm at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street, between Bleecker and Hudson Streets).

"Beaumont & Fletcher is the greatest writing team of the Shakespearean era, and Love Lies A-Bleeding was their biggest hit. Their plays are chock full of thrills, chills, and romantic delight. As the title of this one makes frightfully clear, this play doesn't just tug at the heart-strings, it tears them to pieces. With it's many twists and turns and surprises, the play is the wonderfully byzantine adventure tale of Philaster, a disinherited prince, living in the court of a seriously unfriendly king. And we've assembled a have a superb top-notch cast and director to bring it to life for you," said Mr. Berger.

Combining a plot of erotic intrigue familiar from contemporary comedy (think Twelfth Night) with a plot of political intrigue familiar from contemporary tragedy (think Hamlet), Philaster, or Love Lies A-Bleeding is one of the most artful of the period's tragicomedies. The two plots unite in the triangular relationship comprised of Philaster, the disinherited prince; Bellario, his loyal page; and Arethusa, the daughter of the usurping king. In certain ways, these are conventional types: the virtuous prince beloved of the people yet unable to take his rightful place; the delicate youth who acts as a go-between; the chaste but strong-willed princess who disobeys her father to pursue the man she loves. Yet for all their familiarity, these characters are estranged from us by their hyperbolic rhetoric, occluded motives, and enmeshment in the web of "opinions, errors, [and] dreams" that pass for truth in a corrupt court. Why does Philaster believe the slanderous report of Arethusa's dishonesty? What lies behind Bellario's self-sacrificing devotion to his master? When Philaster stabs Arethusa, why does she refer to this bloody encounter as their "private sport"? By the end of the play, secrets are divulged, confessions delivered, and punishments doled out. Families and lovers are reunited. The King offers the lesson that princes should learn "to rule the passions of their blood." But it is through these characters' displays of passion-ranging from petty envy to noble indignation, from tender affection to jealous rage-that we come to understand why tragicomedy was the most popular genre of the seventeenth century.

Francis Beaumont (1584-1616) and John Fletcher (1579-1625) were the famous "double act" of Jacobean playwriting. They began their careers independently, but by 1606 they produced their first collaboration, The Woman Hater, a satire on London life. Together, they would write at least twelve plays, including their two most successful, Philaster, or Love Lies a-Bleeding (1608) and The Maid's Tragedy (1611). Although Beaumont retired from the theater in 1613, Fletcher continued writing for the stage until his death. He wrote plays alone and with other partners (including Shakespeare, whom he replaced as the leading playwright for the King's Men), but it was his collaboration with Beaumont that endured in the public memory. Together, they made popular the tragicomedy, a mixed form that audiences adored.

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. Revelation Readings will take place on Monday evenings (7:30PM) at the Lucille Lortel Theatre (121 Christopher Street between Bleecker & Hudson Streets), and subsequent Readings will include:

Monday January 27th: Thomas Middleton's Women Beware Women, directed by José Zayas, featuring Juliana Canfield, Kathleen Chalfant, Robert Cuccioli, Zachary Fine, Sam Lilja, Julia McDermott, Diana Oh, Matthew Rauch, Laila Robins, David Ryan Smith and more to be announced. A playful parody of serious sexual games, this wicked social satire speaks with a shockingly contemporary voice about abuse of power and the effects of gender inequality.

Monday February 10th: Kate Hamill's The Scarlet Letter, based on the novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne, directed by Sarna Lapine, featuring Kelley Curran, Kate Hamill, Olivia Oguma and more to be announced. This brand new adaptation of the classic novel sheds new light and laughter on the sin, shame, and utter insanity of a puritanical society.

Monday March 16th: Ana Caro's The Courage to Right a Woman's Wrongs (Valor, Agravio y Mujer), a brand new translation directed by Melia Bensussen, featuring Carson Elrod, Lorenzo Pisoni, Matthew Saldivar and more to be announced. Presented in association with Diversifying the Classics | UCLA. Spanish Golden Age playwright Ana Caro Mallén de Soto presents a witty critique of society through the story of Leonor, a woman who sets out to find her one-time lover (Don Juan, naturally) and bring him to justice.

Monday April 6th: John Milton's Paradise Lost, adapted by Michael Barakiva. Cast to be announced. With its exquisite language and Shakespearean scale, Milton's epic poem poses and seeks to answer a fundamental question of the human experience: What is evil? Note: This reading will be of an edited version of the first half of Milton's poem, primarily focused on the fall of Satan.

Monday May 18th: Anchuli Felicia King's Keene, directed by Ethan McSweeny, featuring Clifton Duncan and more to be announced. Presented in association with American Shakespeare Center. New York Premiere. In this brand new play, dreams merge with reality as a graduate student pursues his thesis on Ira Aldridge, possibly the first black man known to perform the role of Shakespeare's Othello.

Monday June 15th: Lynn Rosen's The Claudias, directed by Meredith McDonough, featuring Ben Chase, Jennifer Mudge, Jeanine Serralles, Danielle Skraastad, and more to be announced. Commissioned by Red Bull Theater. This new play ecstatically and hilariously exhumes the stories of historical women named Claudia, whose tales were buried by the powerful men who dominated their lives and the world.

Coming this Spring: Red Bull's next mainstage production of the season will be The Alchemist by Jeffrey Hatcher adapted from Ben Jonson, directed by Jesse Berger. This will be the World Premiere of a Red Bull Theater commission from the same team that created the acclaimed hit The Government Inspector. Following recent acclaimed productions of Keith Hamilton Cobb's American Moor, Erica Schmidt's Mac Beth, John Webster's The White Devil, and David Ives's The Metromaniacs, The Alchemist brings the greed and absurdity of Jonson's Jacobean London to brilliant contemporary life in this brand new adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher, whose version of inane corruption à la Gogol delighted New York audiences in The Government Inspector. Performances begin in May at the Lucille Lortel Theatre. Cast and design team will be announced shortly.

This Summer, Red Bull will present The 10th Annual Short New Play Festival, the annual festival of 10-minute plays of heightened language and classic themes, featuring two commissions from established writers, alongside six new plays that have been chosen from hundreds of submissions from emerging playwrights across the country. Red Bull Theater's annual Short New Play Festival has generated over 1,000 new short plays of classic themes and heightened language, presenting over 60 of them in performance with some of New York's finest actors and directors.

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. 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 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 Master Classes in classical acting led by veteran theater professionals.

"The classics-shaking Red Bull Theater," as Time Out NY has called it, has presented 20 Off-Broadway productions and nearly 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.

A Red Bull subscription offers you the best seats at the lowest price to your choice of performances - subscribers receive access to tickets before anyone else, at substantial savings. Subscribers will also enjoy no additional processing fees and bonus discounts throughout the season. Subscribing is the easiest way to support Red Bull Theater and secure superb seats while saving up to 30%. To subscribe, call Red Bull Theater Monday-Friday from 11am-5pm at 212/343-7394 or visit www.RedBullTheater.com

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