Brett Singer & Associates, LLC
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE, PLEASE
Classical Theatre of Harlem Presents
KING LEAR
August 30, 2006
The OBIE and Drama Desk Award-winning
Classical Theatre of Harlem (CTH) will begin their 8th season with a
new production of KING LEAR, directed by Alfred Preisser.
Performances will be at the HSA Theatre, 647 St. Nicholas Avenue, and will
begin on September 29th and run through the 5th of
November.
KING LEAR is widely considered to be Shakespeare’s
greatest dramatic work. Tony Award nominee André De Shields returns
to the Classical Theatre of Harlem to play the title role; this will be his
third collaboration with CTH Artistic Director Alfred Preisser. KING
LEAR is a co-production with the Folger Theatre in
Washington, DC; LEAR will move to Miami in November, and then
will travel to Washington, DC for a 6-week engagement at the Folger Theatre in
January of 2007.
Director Alfred Preisser is the Co-Founder and
Artistic Director of The Classical Theatre of Harlem and the director of the
Theatre Division at The Harlem School of the Arts. His work with the company includes Ain’t Supposed to Die a
Natural Death and Macbeth, which recently toured Germany at the Bonn
Biennial and Globe-Neuss Shakespeare Festival.
His original adaptations of Euripides’ Trojan Women and Medea
were performed at CTH in 2002 and 2004, and he is the co-author of 2005’s Caligula,
which featured André De Shields in the title role.
André
De Shields made his Classical Theatre of Harlem debut as Makak in the 2003
production of Derek Walcott’s Dream on Monkey Mountain (2004 AUDELCO
AWARD-Leading Actor in a Play). Other critically acclaimed dramatic roles
include Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman, Sheridan Whiteside in The
Man Who Came To Dinner, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Henry
Drummond in Inherit The Wind and Graham, the Gorilla, in Mark Medoff’s Prymate.
He is best known for appearing on Broadway in The Wiz (title role), Ain’t
Misbehavin’ (Drama Desk nomination), Play On! (Tony Nomination) and The
Full Monty (Tony nomination).
The
cast of KING LEAR also includes OBIE winner Ty Jones, John Douglas
Thompson, Jerome Preston Bates, Robyne Landiss Walker, Zainab Jah, Ken Schatz,
George C. Hosmer, Sean Patrick Reilly, Christina Sajous, Jaime Carrillo, Duane
Allen, Alex Sovronsky, Noshir Dalal, and Shayshahn MacPherson.
The Classical Theatre of
Harlem is a dynamic and unique theatre company dedicated to producing the
classics for a new, young, and culturally diverse audience. Their numerous awards and honors include a
2004 Drama Desk Award (as well as several nominations), 12 AUDELCO Awards
(along with 77 nominations) for Excellence in Black Theatre, and five OBIE
Awards, off-Broadway’s most prestigious honor.
Their production of Funnyhouse of a Negro was nominated for three
2006 Lucille Lortel Awards, the first year they were eligible. CTH’s production
of Ain’t Supposed To Die A Natural Death was picked up by an outside
producer and enjoyed a successful run at the nightclub T New York.
KING LEAR will begin performances on Friday,
September 29th and will run through Sunday, November 5th.
The schedule will be Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8PM and Sundays at 3PM.
Tickets are $35 and can be purchased by calling smarttix at (212) 868-4444 or
by visiting their web site at www.smarttix.com. For more information about The
Classical Theatre of Harlem, visit their web site at
www.classicaltheatreofharlem.org.
KING
LEAR
Written by William
Shakespeare
Directed by Alfred Preisser
At The HSA Theatre, 645 St.
Nicholas Ave. (near 141st Street) in Upper Manhattan
SCHEDULE:
September 29th through November 5th
Wednesdays through
Saturdays at 8PM and Sundays at 3PM.
# # #
311 West 43rd Street, Suite #1107 Phone: (212) 307-7181
New York, NY 10036 FAX: (212) 307-7178
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