Photo by David Sundberg/Esto
POLONSKY SHAKESPEARE CENTER BROOKLYN
2019-2020 SEASON Shakespeare Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne María Irene Fornés Will Eno Samuel Beckett
154 Christopher Street, Suite 3D New York, NY 10014
ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES:
Non Profit Org. U.S. Postage PAID New Brunswick, NJ Permit No. 1512
40TH ANNIVERSARY SEASON
BROOKLYN
SHAKESPEARE & OTHER NEW PLAYS
“WHAT’S IN A NAME?” Dear Friends: I trained as an actor at London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. A primary reason was to see productions at the Royal Shakespeare Company, the theatrical powerhouse founded by Peter Hall in 1961.
Timon of Athens
The RSC challenged the status quo. It was artistically adventurous, political, and animated by a vibrant ensemble of directors, actors, and designers who interpreted a mix of Shakespeare, classics and contemporary plays.
Waiting for Godot
Classics were performed with a spontaneity associated with new plays, and new plays with a rigor for language associated with classics. Productions promoted dialogue between old and new, and the repertory engaged audiences with ideas relevant to the whole nation. A theatre that could potentially speak to a nation. Inspiring. When this theatre started in 1979, I wanted to name it “For a National Theatre Seeking More Audiences” in homage to the RSC and Peter Hall. But a publicist warned against the acronym—“You can’t name a theatre company FANTASMA.” So we had no name and no place, but we had a van and started bringing Shakespeare and new plays by authors such as James De Jongh, Joyce Carol Oates, and Strindberg to colleges, community halls, libraries, and high school gyms.
Why?
The name Theatre for a New Audience evolved as we were touring, but to my mind TFANA has always stood for something more: Theatre for a National Audience. 40 years later, TFANA has a permanent home: Polonsky Shakespeare Center with its Scripps Mainstage. This place—and its repertory, ensembles, and productions—exists to explore, through the prism of Shakespeare and other new plays, an adventurous dialogue with us, our diverse national audience.
Gnit
MARÍA IRENE FORNÉS
Each play this season cuts beneath social surfaces and everyday reality to investigate core questions of being. Who are we? What are we doing on this planet now? How should we consider one another? Talk to one another? Treat one another?
Fefu and Her Friends
Heady stuff. The profound level at which great plays and audiences meet. On behalf of Dorothy Ryan, Managing Director, the Staff, and Board of Directors, I invite you to TFANA 40.
Jeffrey Horowitz Designed by Milton Glaser.
Founding Artistic Director
Juliana Canfield and Tom Pecinka in Adrienne Kennedy’s He Brought Her Heart Back in a Box. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
PAST PRODUCTIONS
Michael Pennington in Shakespeare’s King Lear. Photo by Carol Rosegg.
The company of Shakespeare’s The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
Maggie Siff and Jonathan Cake in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
Cara Ricketts in Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Photo by Gerry Goodstein. MaYaa Boateng in Soho Rep.’s Fairview by Jackie Sibblies Drury. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.
The Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage at Polonsky Shakespeare Center. Photo by Francis Dzikowski/Otto.
Kathryn Hunter in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Photo by Es Devlin.
David Rasche and Mary Wiseman in Thornton Wilder’s The Skin of Our Teeth. Photo by Henry Grossman.
John Douglas Thompson and Maggie Lacey in August Strindberg’s The Father. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
John Douglas Thompson in Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, Parts I and II. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
Austin Smith and Amber Gray in Soho Rep.’s An Octoroon by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
Dianne Wiest in Yale Repertory Theatre’s Happy Days by Samuel Beckett. Photo by Joan Marcus.
WHY?
Kathryn Hunter in Why?. Photo by Pascal Gely.
US PREMIERE
Written and Directed by Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne. Featuring Kathryn Hunter, Marcello Magni, and Hayley Carmichael. Laurie Blundell (pianist).
SEPTEMBER 21–OCTOBER 6, 2019 Photo by Marian Adreani.
Peter Brook was born in London in 1925. Throughout his career, he distinguished himself in various genres: theatre, opera, cinema and writing. He directed his first play in London in 1943. He went on to direct over 70 productions in London, Paris and New York. In 1971, he, along with Micheline Rozan, founded the International Centre for Theatre Research in Paris and in 1974 opened its permanent base in the Bouffes du Nord Theatre. Recently, he directed The Suit (2012), The Valley of Astonishment (2014) and Battlefield (2015) – many of these performed both in French and English.
hy theatre? What is it for? What is it about? Why? W takes these questions, and many others, on a journey that is both dramatic and joyful. The piece allows us to discover that we are not alone in asking these questions and that many great theatre practitioners have been inspired by the exploration of these questions. “Theatre is a very dangerous weapon.” These words were written in the 1920s by one of the most creative and innovative directors the theatre has known – Vsevolod Meyerhold. Meyerhold saw the menacing dangers that the theatre, and art in general, were facing in 1930s Russia and saw “the writing on the wall.” This did not deter him in his work as he held onto the hope that the revolution could win. -Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne.
Marcello Magni in Why?. Photo by Simon Annand.
“In the second half of the 20th century, no director has had more influence or more recognition than Peter Brook.” —The New York Times (reviewing Michael Kustow’s biography of Peter Brook)
—L’Humanité
Hayley Carmichael and Kathryn Hunter in Why?. Photo by Pascal Gely.
Photo by Pascal Victor.
Marie-Hélène Estienne joined the C.I.C.T in 1976 – and has never left – from press secretary to Peter Brook’s assistant, she has worked on many shows including casting the pieces. In time, she became Peter Brook’s collaborator, adapting texts, writing alone or with him and, finally, participating in the staging of the shows. Their recent work includes The Suit, The Valley of Astonishment and The Prisoner.
“Carried by three tremendous actors— Hayley Carmichael, Kathryn Hunter, and Marcello Magni—Why? is a poetic and political act of breathtaking power and simplicity.”
Kathryn Hunter in Why?. Photo by Pascal Gely.
Why? received its world premiere at C.I.C.T/Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in Paris, France on June 19, 2019. The project was co-commissioned by C.I.C.T./Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord; Theatre for a New Audience; Grotowski Institute in Wroclaw, National Performing Arts Center; Taiwan R.O.C. – National Taichung Theater; Centro Dramatico Nacional, Madrid; Teatro Dimitri, Verscio; Théâtre Firmin Gérmier, La Piscine. Why? is supported by the Trust for Mutual Understanding, the French Institute/Alliance Française, and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States. Why? is part of Crossing the Line Festival organized by the French Institute Alliance Française (FIAF), as well as Brooklyn Falls for France, a cultural season organized by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy and FACE Foundation in partnership with Brooklyn venues. Theatre for a New Audience’s presentation of Why? is part of Peter Brook/NY, cultural and educational institutions which have gathered to recognize Peter Brook’s productions and the collaborations of Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne in theatre, opera, film, television, literature, and the development of the next generation of artists in New York City, from 1953-present. Karen Brooks Hopkins is Executive Producer of Peter Brook/NY.
FEFU AND HER FRIENDS
Written and María Irene Fornés. Directed by Lileana Blain-Cruz.
NOVEMBER 16–DECEMBER 8, 2019
María Irene Fornés was born in Havana, Cuba, and came to New York City in 1945 at the age of 15. Her first play, Tango Palace, was produced in 1963. Among her most celebrated plays are Promenade, The Successful Life of 3, Fefu and Her Friends, The Danube, Mud, The Conduct of Life, And What of the Night?, Abingdon Square, The Summer in Gossensass and Oscar and Bertha. Ms. Fornés was the recipient of nine Obie Awards, one of which was for Sustained Achievement in Theater. She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for And What of the Night? In 2019 she was inducted into the Playwrights’ Sidewalk in front of the Lucille Lortel Theatre on Christopher Street in the West Village.
“Irene is in the pantheon of the great writers like Beckett or Pinter or Caryl Churchill.” —Joanne Akalaitis, The New York Times Rebecca Schull in the New York Theater Strategy production of Fefu and Her Friends, 1977. Photo by Rena Hansen.
efu and Her Friends, one of the most beloved and F discussed plays of the late Cuban-American dramatist María Irene Fornés, tells the story of a group of intelligent, outgoing young women who have so internalized male views of their sex that they lash out indirectly in mysterious ways. A classic of both feminist and environmental theater, Fefu splits its audience into groups that move around to different locations in the theatre. The women’s fascinatingly enigmatic gathering at a New England country house in 1935 is seen through multiple perspectives and degrees of intimacy. TFANA’s production is the first Off-Broadway revival of Fefu and Her Friends since American Place Theatre’s 1978 production.
“The Fornés oeuvre is one of American drama’s most important achievements.” — Tony Kushner, The New York Times The New York Theater Strategy production of Fefu and Her Friends, 1977. Photo by Rena Hansen.
“Directed with head-spinning velocity and shape-shifting flair by Lileana Blain-Cruz.” —The New York Times reviewing Marys Seacole Quincy Tyler Bernstine in the Lincoln Center LCT3 production of Marys Seacole, directed by Lileana Blain Cruz. Photo by Julieta Cervantes.
Lileana Blain-Cruz. TFANA debut. Other projects: Marys Seacole at LCT3 (Obie); Faust at Opera Omaha; Thunderbodies and Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again at Soho Rep; The House That Will Not Stand and Red Speedo at NYTW; Fabulation, Or the Re-Education of Undine and The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World (Obie) at Signature Theatre; and Henry IV, Part One and Much Ado About Nothing at OSF.
TIMON OF ATHENS
“A searing central performance [by Kathryn Hunter] flips the gender dynamics as Shakespeare’s study of greed gets a ravishing revival.”
Written by William Shakespeare. Directed by Simon Godwin.
— The Guardian
Featuring Kathryn Hunter. A Co-Production with Shakespeare Theatre Company. In Association with the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Kathryn Hunter in Timon of Athens at Royal Shakespeare Company. Photo by Simon Annand.
JANUARY 11–FEBRUARY 9, 2020 Kathryn Hunter is an internationally renowned actress and director. Title roles include Timon of Athens, Prometheus Bound, Richard III, King Lear, Antony & Cleopatra, The Skriker (Time Out Best Actress Award), The Visit (Olivier Best Actress Award), Cards (Robert Lepage), and The Bee. TFANA: The Emperor, Kafka’s Monkey, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Julie Taymor), The Valley of Astonishment and Fragments (both Peter Brook). Directing credits: My Perfect Mind (Told By An Idiot), The Birds, Comedy of Errors, Pericles, Mr. Puntilla, and The Glory of Living.
imon Godwin (Measure for Measure) returns to S TFANA with a reimagining of his acclaimed production of Timon of Athens, featuring Olivier Award-winner Kathryn Hunter, which premiered at the Royal Shakespeare Company in 2017. In this new production with an American company, the character of Timon is regendered as female. Timon lives in a world of opulence and generosity, throwing wild parties attended by politicians, artists and the celebrities of Athens. When she loses her wealth and her friends abandon her, Timon takes to the forest, exchanging her luxurious gowns for sackcloth and plotting revenge against the city she loves. This production of Timon of Athens marks the 33rd of Shakespeare’s 38-play canon that TFANA has produced.
Kathryn Hunter in Timon of Athens at Royal Shakespeare Company. Photo by Simon Annand.
Simon Godwin officially joins Shakespeare Theatre Company as Artistic Director in September 2019. He also serves as Associate Director of the National Theatre of London, and previously at the Royal Court Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic, and the Royal and Derngate Theatres (Northampton). Simon has also directed at the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 2012 Simon was awarded the inaugural Evening Standard/Burberry Award for an Emerging Director.
This production of Timon of Athens is sponsored by
Additional support is provided by Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest, and by endowment funds provided by The Howard Gilman Foundation Fund for Classic Drama.
“Director Simon Godwin proves yet again that he combines a contemporary eye with a fastidious ear for Shakespeare’s language.” — The Guardian reviewing The Royal Shakespeare Company’s Antony & Cleopatra
GNIT
NEW YORK PREMIERE
Photo by Maria Dizzia
Written by Will Eno. Directed by Olivier Butler.
Will Eno lives in Brooklyn with his wife Maria Dizzia and their daughter Albertine. He is a Pulitzer finalist, and winner of an Obie, Drama Desk, and Lucille Lortel Award, among other honors. His plays have been performed around the country and translated into many languages. They are published by Samuel French, TCG, Dramatists Play Service, playscripts, and Oberon Books.
MARCH 7–MARCH 29, 2020 nit is the celebrated American playwright Will Eno’s G acerbically witty adaptation of the Ibsen classic Peer Gynt. Eno has reimagined that sprawling, satirical, 19th-century quest tale as a quick-paced contemporary tragicomedy. Peter Gnit is a feckless, well-meaning sloucher who bounces between glib reactions to Experience and illconsidered efforts at finding his True Self, all the while missing the love, joy, sorrow, goodness and authentic experience that are right in front of his nose. Packed with Eno’s signature wordplay, wit, and deflated pretentiousness, Gnit finds hilarity in calamitous self-deception and profundity in a pratfall life.
“[Audiences] will delight in how snugly Ibsen’s peculiar drama accommodates Mr. Eno’s flair for playing games with language and his offbeat humor, which cuts to the heart as incisively as it tickles the funny bone.” —The New York Times reviewing the 2013 world premiere of Gnit at Actors Theatre of Louisville, Humana Festival.
“Mr. Eno has built a career nudging ordinary speech toward the odd, the sad and the marvelous. His plays are formally inventive and verbally dexterous, yet they can feel excruciatingly truthful.” – The New York Times
“ Dislocating…Frequently funny …. humanizing warmth….capturing the weirdness of adult behavior, they make us see life as kids again—with all the joy and dire vulnerability that entails.” –Time Out reviewing Blood Play, directed by Oliver Butler for The Debate Society. Oliver Butler. Broadway: What the Constitution Means To Me (Best Play Tony Award nomination). “Oliver Butler’s rivetingly intelligent production includes no special effects except the kind achieved by words.” –The New York Times reviewing What the Constitution Means to Me. Off-Broadway: collaborations with Will Eno including the first NYC revival of Thom Pain (Signature Theater, starring Michael C. Hall) and The Open House (Signature Theater, Lortel Best Play, Obie Award); world premiere of Jordan Harrison’s The Amateurs (Vineyard Theater). Regional: The Whistleblower (Denver Center), Thom Pain (Geffen Playhouse, starring Rainn Wilson), Legacy (Williamstown), An Opening in Time (Hartford). Co-Artistic Director of The Debate Society. Hannah Bos and Michael Cyril Creighton in Blood Play, directed by Oliver Butler for The Debate Society. Photo by Javier Oddo.
Henrik Ibsen, 1898. Photo by Gustav Borgen.
WAITING FOR GODOT
Written by Samuel Beckett. Directed by Arin Arbus
APRIL 25–MAY 17, 2020
Arin Arbus recently made her Broadway debut with Terrence McNally’s Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune. She is a resident artist at TFANA where she directed The Winter’s Tale, The Skin of Our Teeth, repertory productions of Strindberg’s The Father and Ibsen’s A Doll’s House, as well as King Lear, Much Ado About Nothing, The Taming of the Shrew, Macbeth, Measure for Measure and Othello. She staged Britten’s The Rape of Lucretia at Houston Grand Opera and La Traviata at Canadian Opera Company and Lyric Opera of Chicago. She was a Drama League Directing Fellow, a Princess Grace Award Recipient and spent several years making theatre with prisoners at a medium security prison in upstate New York in association with Rehabilitation Through the Arts.
ince their first appearance in a tiny Paris theatre in S 1953, Samuel Beckett’s iconic down-and-outs Vladimir and Estragon have rarely been off the stage. Nearly every evening, somewhere on the globe, they show up for their dubious appointment with a savior named Godot who never comes, filling time with games and musing aphoristically on existence. Hilarious and heartbreaking, Waiting for Godot is the modern theatre’s indispensable document of rootlessness, uncertainty, and perpetually postponed deliverance.
“Waiting for Godot is one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.” –The New York Times
Samuel Beckett. Photo by John Haynes.
“Ms. Arbus [makes] a strong Broadway debut after a decade of critical success Off Broadway.” – The New York Times reviewing Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune.
Wilder’s text demands a directorial one-two punch—a joyous spirit that can sustain the superficial brightness while keeping a firm grasp on its dark underpinnings. Arin Arbus’s production gets more of both than I’ve experienced in any previous staging. — The Village Voice reviewing Arin Arbus’s The Skin of Our Teeth.
The Skin of Our Teeth, directed by Arin Arbus. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
The production is supported by endowment funds provided by The Howard Gilman Foundation Fund for Classic Drama.
Awoye Timpo
THE STUDIO
HUMANITIES
The Studio supports process, development and experimentation for theatre artists through residencies, workshops, and ongoing professional development.
You are invited to engage with the language and ideas of writers through complementary humanities programs, including:
Upcoming Studio events include explorations of Jean Genet by Taibi Magur, Christopher Marlowe by Robert O’Hara, and Awoye Timpo’s exploring and expanding upon of the classical canon.
tfana talks, post-performance conversations with artists, scholars, and thinkers
360° Viewfinder, our online publication exploring each production
J.T. Rogers. Photo by Elena Olivo.
Calvin Trillin. Photo by Elena Olivo.
The Studio is supported by a leadership grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and matching funds from the Booth Ferris Foundation and Charlene Weinstein.
Jeffrey Horowitz, Maaza Mengiste and Bianca Vivion Brooks. Photo by Elena Olivo.
TFANA 2018 Young Directors Workshop with Peter Brook and Marie-Hélène Estienne. Photo by Gerry Goodstein.
TFANA’s Humanities programs are supported in part by a humanities endowment established by a challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Leadership matching gifts were provided by Joan and Robert Arnow, Perry and Marty Granoff, John J. Kerr and Nora Wren Kerr, and Theodore C. Rogers.
Robert O’Hara
Sarah Benson. Photo by Elena Olivo.
Taibi Magur
Raja Feather Kelly and Jackie Sibblies Drury. Photo by Elena Olivo.
James Shapiro. Photo by Elena Olivo.
GET THE BEST SEATS FOR THE BEST PRICES. PLUS EXTRA BENEFITS OF A SEASON PACKAGE
Up to 45% discount off full-price tickets. Access to discounted guest tickets. Priority booking. Choice seat locations. No booking fees. No-fee ticket exchanges (up to 24 hours prior to performance). Priority reservations for other programming, including tfana talks, the Studio programs, and more.
2019-2020 PACKAGES FIVE PLAY $275 One ticket to each of the five productions in the 2019-2020 season at just $55 per ticket. Savings of up to 45% plus all above benefits. THREE PLAY $174 One ticket each to Timon of Athens and two other productions in the 2019-2020 season at just $58 per ticket. Savings of up to 42% plus all above benefits. FLEX $240 Four tickets to use in any combination during the 2019-2020 season at just $60 a ticket. Savings of up to 40% plus all above benefits. *All productions, artists, and dates are subject to change. All subscription packages (five-play; three-play; flex) are non-refundable, subject to change, and valid for the 2019-2020 season only.
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WHY? September 21 – October 6, 2019 FEFU AND HER FRIENDS November 16 – December 8, 2019 TIMON OF ATHENS January 11 – February 9, 2020 GNIT March 7 – March 29, 2020 WAITING FOR GODOT April 25 – May 17, 2020
Order Online: www.tfana.org/current-season/seasontickets By Phone: 212-229-2819 x10 Mail order form to: tfana Subscriptions, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY 11217
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Food & Drink, in the convivial lobby of Polonsky Shakespeare Center, is catered by Union Square Events of Danny Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group. Enjoy seasonal soups, sandwiches, salads and desserts, plus wine and beer. The Daniel and Joanna S. Rose Book Kiosk, in cooperation with Greenlight Bookstore, offers selected books, films, and music related to Shakespeare, theatre topics and TFANA productions for purchase in the lobby. Open before performances and during intermission.
Photo by David Sundberg/Esto
Principal support for Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs is provided by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Jerome L. Greene Arts Access Fund in the New York Community Trust, The SHS Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, The Thompson Family Foundation, and Bloomberg Philanthropies. Major support is provided by The Achelis and Bodman Foundation, Arete Foundation, Kathleen Walsh and Gene Bernstein, Sally Brody, Robert E. Buckholz and Lizanne Fontaine, Constance Christensen, Deloitte LLP, Sidney E. Frank Foundation, The Hearst Corporation, The JKW Foundation in honor of Jean Stein,Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel LLP, Latham & Watkins LLP, The Lostand Foundation, Audrey Heffernan Meyer and Danny Meyer, Theodore C. Rogers, The Fan Fox and Leslie R. Samuels Foundation, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, Susan Stockel, Anne and William Tatlock, and the Margaret Whitton Charitable Remainder Trust. Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs are also made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities; Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew Cuomo and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.