San Francisco's African-American Shakespeare Company Announces Full Live-and-in-Person 2021-22 Season

The African-American Shakespeare company is elated to announce what Artistic Director L Peter Callender is a calling a season of "splendor and renewal" featuring 4 productions, live-and-in-person: The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged); Cinderella; The Glass Menagerie; and Richard II. There will also be a special streaming-only edition of Twelfth Night.

The last live production by the company The Trial of One Short-Sighted Black Woman vs. Mammy Louise and Safreeta Mae ran from February 15 through March 1 at the Taube Auditorium.

The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged)

Playwright: Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield
Director: Reed Martin
When: September 3 through October 10
Where: San Francisco: Warriors Thrive City; East Bay: Lafayette Art & Wine Festival on September 19; South Bay: TBA
Tickets: Admission is FREE

Originally scheduled for the company's 2020 Season, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: Abridged is a sharp, agile and hilariously comic take on the works of the Bard, all of which find their way onto the stage at one moment or another. So, yes, 75 characters from 37 plays, performed by 3 actors in approximately 97 minutes.

Created by the team of Adam Long, Daniel Singer and Jess Winfield, aka The Reduced Shakespeare Company, The Complete Works made its first appearance in 1981, premiered at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 1987, and later went on to settle in for a 9-year run at the Criterion Theatre in London. Reed Martin who will direct this production (as he has others around the world) joined the Reduced Shakespeare Company in 1989, when he took over for Daniel Singer.

Described by AASC Artistic Director L Peter Callender as "part Marx Brothers, part Three Stooges, part poetry and part vaudeville," laughter is on the docket as the company breaks its silence with this uproarious comedy.

Cinderella

Playwright: African-American Shakespeare Company
Director: L. Peter Callender
When: December 18 and 19
Where: Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF
Tickets: $35 - $75

A lot has changed since AASC last performed Cinderella in 2019 and the company looks forward to re-staging their particular take on this classic fairy tale featuring one very magical pair of shoes and a fairy godmother who knows what is what!

The Glass Menagerie

Playwright: Tennessee Williams
Director: Monica Ndounou
When: February 26th - March 13, 2022
Where: Taube Atrium, 401 Van Ness, SF CA
Tickets: $35-$75

The spring finds the company once again presenting a play by Tennessee Williams. The Glass Menagerie is a bona-fide and vaunted part of the American theatrical canon. And as a memory play, has few peers, which is why Director Monica Ndounou (en-DOO-noo) sees this as an opportunity to "have a conversation with Tennessee Williams, a call and response of sorts. We want to show how Black people might have experienced this period in history and why it matters now by infusing it with Blackness in an organic way as reflected through our lived experiences."

AASC presented A Streetcar Named Desire at the Marines Memorial Theater in 2018

Richard II

Playwright: William Shakespeare
Director: L. Peter Callender
When: April/May 2022
Venue: TBA (but most likely either Marine's Memorial or Taube)
Tickets: $35 - $75

The company will end the season with one of Shakespeare's most memorable history plays, Richard II.

Directed by L. Peter Callender who intends to structure it as a memory play, one where audiences can expect to begin at the end and work there way through as the plot unwinds via some of Shakespeare's most lyrical language. "I wanted to slim down the play," says Callender, "and present it as if an old reel-to-reel had been found with the new owner splicing the pieces together. The story will be told as we tell ourselves our own stories, which is through memories and dreams, where we have to decide what is real and what is our imagination."

Streaming

In addition to the live performances scheduled for the season, The African-American Shakespeare Company will stream their new version of Twelfth Night starting this Fall.

Set in New Orleans after the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, viewers can expect to find resonance with our current collective situation as we begin to emerge from the pandemic and look around, eager to recover, rebuild and find happiness.

"My hope, says Director Bruce Avery, "is that those who've lost so much in this past year-students and teachers, performers, workers who lost jobs and careers-will find elements both heartbreaking and heartening in this show that resonate with them."

The performance was recorded and edited with the purpose of streaming in mind, meaning post-production sound effects and editing that will also include a soundtrack that fuses New Orleans Blues and Jazz to Shakespeare's text/lyrics.

This is the second AASC production of Twelfth Night, the first being in 2012, which was set in San Francisco.

Originally designed to stream to schools and students, Twelfth Night will be available on the AASC You Tube channel and is made possible through a grant from Shakespeare in American Communities.

Other performances streaming that will be available through 2021 on YouTube: Four Queens - No Trump; The Drowning Pool; Henry V; And Jesus Moonwalks The Mississippi.

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