BREAKNECK HAMLET Plays The Tampa International Fringe Festival

Chicago actor, Timothy Mooney, is bringing Breakneck Hamlet for just five performances at the Silver Meteor Gallery in the Tampa International Fringe Festival, May 7-12!

This exciting and hilarious "Hamlet" has drawn raves and awards at festivals across the US and Canada, as well as in performances in England, Ireland, and SOLD OUT performances in Denmark (as in "something is rotten in the state of...!).

Tim Mooney has "recklessly sliced" Breakneck Hamlet from Shakespeare's original, cutting a four-hour play to a single hour with a single actor! This "breakneck" performance reveals Hamlet as "a thrilling chameleon, with an immense intellectual capacity and a hilarious, wicked sense of humor." Rather than the usual "melancholy Dane," Mooney's Hamlet "fights like hell," with barely a second-long pause throughout!

Mooney is a veteran of some 60 fringe festivals (he performed Breakneck Julius Caesar at last year's inaugural Tampa International Fringe Festival), and 15 years of touring colleges and high schools across the US with his award-winning one-man shows. Breakneck Hamlet, Mooney's eighth one-man play, follows his similar amazing feats of memory and performance that include Moliere than Thou, Lot o' Shakespeare (one monologue from each of Shakespeare's plays), and The Greatest Speech of All Time (composed of actual historical speeches ranging from Socrates through Martin Luther King).

The adaptor of 17 of the plays of Molière, Mooney authored the popular acting textbook, Acting at the Speed of Life; Conquering Theatrical Style. Tim's skill at turning rhetorical complexity into theatrical power gets a harrowing and thrilling test, boiling the greatest play of all time down to a one-man, one-hour romp!

Tim explains, "I was inspired to bring substance and passion to the soliloquies and great speeches (while bridging the gaps of the ongoing action with a playful, snarky commentary that I can't quite resist). The intent is to add by subtraction. By removing a dozen actors and three hours of melancholy, we surface the power that the original Elizabethan audience must have felt. It gives the modern audience access to one of our greatest cultural touchstones. We are suddenly more aware of a delicate and dangerous political battle, between two equally powerful, and equally aware players fighting to the death over who gets to be king."

Breakneck Hamlet will be presented at the Silver Meteor Gallery, Mon, May 7 at 6:30, Tues, May 8 at 7:30, Thurs, May 10 at 7:30, Fri, May 11 at 6:00 and Sat, May 12 at 6:00. Tickets to "Breakneck Hamlet" are $12 and can be purchased on-line via tampafringe.org or at the door.

More on Tim Mooney can be found at http://timmooneyrep.com/ , and details surrounding this particular event are at http://www.timmooneyrep.com/fringe/calgary.html A 2-minute video race-through the play can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QATcDH3H6vM .