The Wooster Group Presents HAMLET at The Performing Garage, 10/24-11/11

The Wooster Group will present nightly performances of HAMLET at The Performing Garage during a three-week video shoot of the production. Public showings of the live performance begin the evening of Wednesday, October 24th and run through Sunday, November 11th, 2012.

Performances are Tuesday through Sunday at 8:00pm. Seating for the 17 showings is limited. General admission tickets are $25, reserved tickets are $45, and patron tickets are $100-$250 (patron ticket buyers will be credited in the HAMLET video). There will be a limited number of $25 rush tickets held for each performance sold one hour before curtain at the door of The Performing Garage. Tickets will go on sale on The Wooster Group’s website (www.thewoostergroup.org) on Monday, September 10th at 11:00am. These showings are not open for review.

In The Wooster Group’s HAMLET, Shakespeare’s classic tragedy is re-imagined by remixing and repurposing Richard Burton’s 1964 Broadway production, directed by John Gielgud. The Burton production was recorded in live performance from 17 camera angles and edited into a film that was shown for only two days in 2,000 movie houses across the U.S. The idea of bringing a live theater experience to thousands of simultaneous viewers in different cities was trumpeted as a new form called “Theatrofilm,” made possible through “the miracle of Electronovision.” The Wooster Group attempts to reverse the process, reconstructing a hypothetical theater piece from the fragmentary evidence of the edited film. We channel the ghost of the legendary 1964 performance, descending into a kind of madness, intentionally replacing our own spirit with the spirit of another.

HAMLET is directed by Elizabeth LeCompte and features Scott Shepherd as Hamlet; Kate Valk as Gertrude and Ophelia; Ari Fliakos as Claudius, the Ghost, the Gravedigger, and Osric; Koosil-ja as the Nurse; Alessandro Magania as various attendants; Greg Mehrten as Polonius and the Priest; Daniel Pettrow as Horatio, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and the Player Queen; and Casey Spooner as Laertes, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and the Player King.

Additional Wooster Group artists and associates contributing to the piece include Jennifer Tipton and Gabe Maxson (lighting); Ruud van den Akker (set); Geoff Abbas, Bobby McElver, Matt Schloss, and Omar Zubair (sound); FISCHERSPOONER (Laertes’ songs); Warren Fischer (additional music); Reid Farrington and Andrew Schneider (video); Bozkurt Karasu (production manager); Teresa Hartmann (stage manager); Aron Deyo (technical director); Kent Barrett (master electrician); Claudia Hill (costumes); Enver Chakartash (wardrobe); Felix Ivanov (fight coach); Natalie Thomas (movement coach); Zbigniew Bzymek (video blog); and Kate Valk (associate director).

The Wooster Group develops work over extended periods of time, presenting a piece in live performance at various stages of its evolution. Initial rehearsals for HAMLET began in the spring of 2005 at The Performing Garage. We have presented live performances of HAMLET in New York at St. Ann’s Warehouse and The Public Theater in 2007, and on tour in Barcelona, Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Athens, Gdansk, Bucharest, Sarasota, and Dublin spanning 2006-2012. Our latest version of HAMLET brings the production back to The Performing Garage where it was originally developed. The production will tour to Santiago and São Paulo in 2013.

HAMLET is a co-production of The Wooster Group and the 30 Festival of Barcelona Grec- Institute de Cultura, Ajuntament of Barcelona. The Wooster Group is a company of experimental theatre artists under the direction of Elizabeth LeCompte. Wooster Group Productions are known for their interweaving of text and performance with technology to tell stories in new ways.

Since its founding in 1975, the Group has made more than 30 works for theatre, dance, film, and video, including SAKONNET POINT (1975), RUMSTICK ROAD (1977), NAYAT SCHOOL (1978), POINT JUDITH (1979), ROUTE 1&9 (1981), L.S.D. (...JUST THE HIGH POINTS...) (1984), FRANK DELL’S THE TEMPTATION OF ST. ANTONY (1988), NORTH ATLANTIC (1984, 1999, 2010), BRACE UP! (1991, 2003), THE EMPEROR JONES (1993, 2006), FISH STORY (1994), THE HAIRY APE (1996), HOUSE/LIGHTS (1998, 2005), TO YOU, THE BIRDIE! (Phèdre) (2002), POOR THEATER (2004), WHO’S YOUR DADA?! (2006), HAMLET (2007, 2012), LA DIDONE (2009), VIEUX CARRÉ (2011), and TROILUS & CRESSIDA, a collaboration with the Royal Shakespeare Company (2012).

The Group has toured in the U.S. and to Europe, Russia, Canada, South America, the Middle East, Asia, and Australia. The Performing Garage at 33 Wooster Street in lower Manhattan is the company’s permanent home, which it owns and operates as a shareholder in the Grand Street Artists Co-op, originally established as part of the Fluxus art movement. The Group’s daily video blog can be followed at www.thewoostergroup.org.

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