California Shakespeare Theater Announces Director for MEASURE FOR MEASURE

California Shakespeare Theater today announced that Tyne Rafaeli will direct Cal Shakes' final production of its 2017 season, the previously-announced Measure for Measure. This first-ever co-production between Cal Shakes and Santa Cruz Shakespeare will play at the Bruns Amphitheater from September 20 through October 15.

Cal Shakes Artistic Director Eric Ting says, "Shakespeare's celebratEd Battle of spirit and flesh is sure to deliver a story both darkly comic and comically relevant in director Tyne Rafaeli's sparkling vision for Measure for Measure. I'm thrilled to be announcing this fabulous collaboration with our friends at Santa Cruz Shakespeare to share this production across the Bay Area; and so excited to introduce Tyne to our great community."

Director Tyne Rafaeli adds, "Measure for Measure is an arrestingly modern play; a wickedly dark comedy mixing political intrigue, sexual politics and social justice. This is a world in which swaggering gangsters from the underbelly of society smash up against those who wield extreme political power. And at the center of the maelstrom is the extraordinary Isabella. Both satirical and serious, the play asks vital questions about control; about how our bodies become the territory in which battles for this control are played out. It also asks ancient questions about the nature of justice and the experience of being ruled, which carry a fascinating resonance for our own time."
Tyne Rafaeli is a British-American director who trained at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and Columbia University. She has directed classics, new plays and musicals in London and the US and her work has been seen at Classic Stage Company, New York Stage and Film, Goodspeed Opera House, Juilliard, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Great Lakes Shakespeare, American Players Theater, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, O'Neill Playwright's Conference and PlayPenn, among others. Tyne has also served as Associate Director on the West End and Broadway productions of The King and I, The Bridges of Madison County, Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Fiddler on the Roof, and Golden Boy. She is a 2016-18 Time Warner Directing Fellow at the Women's Project Theatre and received the 2014 SDC Sir John Gielgud Fellowship for Classic Direction.

In addition to Measure for Measure, Cal Shakes 2017 season includes Shakespeare's beloved romantic comedy, As You Like It, directed by Desdemona Chiang; Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie, directed by Zelda Fischandler award-winner Lisa Portes; and the West Coast premiere of Oakland native Marcus Gardley's black odyssey, directed by Cal Shakes Artistic Director Eric Ting. Our season of plays will be once again supplemented by a series of Civic Dialogues designed to highlight issues surfaced by the plays in context with local artists, community partners, and thought-leaders.

Season packages for the four-play season are available now; single and group tickets go on sale March 27, 2017. Prices start at $130 for a four-play subscription, with discounts available for seniors, youth, and full-time K-12 educators.

For information or to charge tickets by phone with VISA, MasterCard, Discover, or American Express, call the Cal Shakes Box Office at 510.548.9666. Additional information and online ticketing is available at www.calshakes.org.

ABOUT CAL SHAKES
Founded in 1974 as a collective of actors performing for free in the park, California Shakespeare Theater (Cal Shakes), now under the leadership of Artistic Director Eric Ting and Managing Director Susie Falk, welcomes more than 43,000 people annually to the magnificent solar-powered Bruns Amphitheater, located in the Siesta Valley of the East Bay hills. In 2001, Cal Shakes formalized its educational activities with the launch of its Artistic Learning program, which ignites students' creative minds and voices, and reaches more than 4,000 Bay Area youth each year. In 2005, Cal Shakes expanded its work with communities to explore ways to integrate the arts more deeply into community life, investigating what happens when the powerful tools of theater artists are mobilized and integrated into broader civic dialogue. Over the course of the past decade, this work has evolved to become Cal Shakes Artistic Engagement program, which has garnered support from national and local foundations. In 2013, Cal Shakes launched its Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Initiative to create and sustain an equitable arts eco-system; the company became a founding member of Theatre Communications Group (TCG)'s Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Institute, and is now among the leaders in the field in this work.

For more information, visit: www.calshakes.org

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