The Shakespeare Theatre Company Announces 2015-16 Rediscovery Series

The upcoming 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death on April 23, 1616, sets the stage for the Shakespeare Theatre Company's (STC's) 2015-2016 ReDiscovery Series, which features readings of works by four prominent living authors who provide contemporary responses to Shakespeare's life and plays. The Series gets underway with the Washington premiere of Edward Bond's landmark 1973 play Bingo, directed by STC Artistic Associate Craig Baldwin, on Monday, October 19, at the Lansburgh Theatre.

"Shakespeare's significance is often demonstrated on our stages through his own words," says STC Artistic Director Michael Kahn. "Seeing his direct influence on the words of others, including some of our most decorated authors, will be a distinct pleasure of this season's ReDiscovery Series. And with all of this season's readings being either a regional, American or world premiere, we are proud to build on the Series' legacy of unearthing rare and neglected plays, and to give STC audiences an opportunity to engage with works previously unseen in Washington."

ReDiscovery Series readings take place at 7:30 p.m. at the Lansburgh Theatre (450 7th Street NW) on four Mondays: October 19, 2015; November 16, 2015; February 8, 2016; and June 6, 2016. Admission is free and reservations are required. To reserve tickets, visit ShakespeareTheatre.org/ReDiscovery or call 202.547.1122, option 4. Plays and dates are subject to change.

THE 2015-2016 REDISCOVERY SERIES

Bingo
By Edward Bond
Monday, October 19, 2015

It is a contradiction that has often puzzled Shakespeare scholars: how did the man who wroteKing Lear also retire to Stratford-upon-Avon and live out the rest of his life in solitude as a wealthy landowner? In this 1973 work by Edward Bond-recently named one of the 101 best plays of all time by Michael Billington of The Guardian-a portrait of an older, conscience-stricken Shakespeare emerges. This special ReDiscovery reading marks the Washington premiere of Bond's play, most recently seen in a 2012 production at the Chichester Festival starring Sir Patrick Stewart.

Desdemona
By Toni Morrison
Monday, November 16, 2015

Written in 2012 in collaboration with internationally acclaimed director Peter Sellars and Malian musician Rokia Traoré, this kaleidoscopic work by Pulitzer and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison joins the decorated company of "response plays" to Shakespeare's work, alongside Paula Vogel's Desdemona, or a Play about a Handkerchief and David Greig's Dunsinane. Lyrically reflecting on aspects of Shakespeare's Othello, Morrison gives a voice back to Desdemona and a range of color to her world.

Dogg's Hamlet & Cahoot's Macbeth
By Tom Stoppard
Monday, February 8, 2016

Wittgenstein meets Hamlet, and Macbeth meets Soviet Prague in the Washington premiere of two meta-Shakespearean one-acts by the always-imaginative Tom Stoppard, written in 1978 to be performed together. In the former, Stoppard mines Hamlet as a lingua franca for a linguistic farce deploying the philosophical logic of Ludwig Wittgenstein. In the latter, a truncated version of the Scottish Play is staged in a Czech living room, as was common Cold War practice among theatre artists. As Newsweek wrote: "The incorrigibly playful Stoppard has never been more serious than in this most playful of his works. Like George Orwell, Stoppard knows that language and liberty are intertwined: when language is perverted, corrupted or forcibly repressed, so is liberty."

Hair of the Dog
By Constance Congdon
Monday, June 6, 2016 .

How did Christopher Marlowe die? And how did Shakespeare become Shakespeare? In this world premiere by acclaimed author Constance Congdon (2011-2012's The Servant of Two Masters), Shakespeare sets out to solve the mystery. Written in bombastic, sometimes rhyming blank verse, drawing on Revenge Tragedy conventions as well as Elizabethan historical records, Congdon's play explores the conundrums of history, literary inspiration, and coming to terms with the permanence of death.

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