Howard Brenton's ANNE BOLEYN Makes US Debut at the Gamm, 1/17-2/17

The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre (The Gamm) opens 2013 with the U.S. premiere of British playwright Howard Brenton's Anne Boleyn. The hit of two consecutive seasons (2010, 2011) at Shakespeare's Globe, London, Anne Boleyn plays on the fringe of the costume drama, employing intellectual debate and irreverent humor in an unforgettable recasting of doomed queen as religious reformer. Ambitious and captivating, Anne Boleyn shows "the Tudor pack at their most snarling, scheming, ribald, pleasure-seeking and gaily entertaining," says The (London) Daily Telegraph

Rachel Walshe (Circle Mirror Transformation, Mauritius) directs Gamm newcomer Madeleine Lambert as Boleyn, a woman with passionate beliefs and high intelligence as she navigates her marriage to King Henry VIII, played by Gamm Resident Actor Steve Kidd.

Anne Boleyn runs from January 17 through February 17 at The Gamm Theatre, 172 Exchange St., Pawtucket, RI. Tickets: $36 and $45 (depending on day/time); preview and press performances (January 17-21) just $26. Discounts for subscribers, groups of 10 or more, seniors and students. Tickets at 401-723-4266 or gammtheatre.org.

Gamm Artistic Director Tony Estrella says, "We are very proud to present the professional U.S. premiere of another Howard Brenton epic. This is our second American debut of a Brenton play in less than three years, starting with Paul (2011)?a powerful and shocking take on the politics of Christianity at its inception. Anne Boleyn is an equally powerful and provocative examination of that religion and its reformation 1,500 years later. The world would change irrevocably in the wake of one marriage and the will of one implacable young lady. Brenton brilliantly follows the story through to the birth of the King James Bible, ironically the most influential political document ever published. Ranging from the early 16th century to the first decade of the 17th, Brenton's play is a generous, funny, intelligent pot-boiler, historical romance and ghost story. In other words, it is the perfect Gamm play: a Shakespearean-like epic that invites the audience into the heart of the action."