Thank you for visiting our archive. Each performance submitted to our website will be explained in detail in its own blog post. You can choose to look through these posts in a variety of ways.
Struggles of nationality, ambition and gender-inequality set the tone for a different take on Othello. In a landscape of Plastic and Isolation, Othello marries the daughter of an Icelandic entrepreneur. Iago, an ambitious woman, feels betrayed when Othello selects a young man as his next in command. Co-produced by Vesturport.
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A robust production in modern dress. Its adaptive energies lie in the contemporized revisioning of Shakespeare. The military milieu is emphasized, and Othello and Iago are buddies, even seen gyming together. Iago's wiliness is believable and Othello's susceptibility becomes understandable. Desdemona is spirited: she jumps out of the bed and runs to the bedroom door banging on it for help at the end. The verse in translation is handled with ease and fluency, adding to the contemporary performance of the play.
Read MoreDying to Succeed is a whacky show about Shakespeare's iconic characters in today's corporate world. Iago is bitter as Othello doesn't give him the promotion he thinks he deserves; Macbeth is eyeing the CEO's office; and Portia multi-tasks and multi-roles her way around the glass ceiling. Guest appearances by Lady Macbeth, Cordelia, Romeo and Juliet...with a little help from the audience! This is a solo theatre, stand-up and audience interactive performance.
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In a prison that looks very much like Hell, suspended in space and time, Othello is bound to endlessly atone for the murder of Desdemona. Delirious and obsessed, he becomes one with his nemesis, Iago. Othello's Guilt paints a dystopian picture of jealousy, personal anguish and self-destruction, using exclusively Shakespeare's words.
Roberto Cavosi's new adaptation highlights the relationship between good and evil - themes which inhabit us all. Cavosi’s work absorbs and transforms the psychological intensity at the heart of modern and contemporary theatre, from Pirandello to Beckett. With Othello’s Guilt, the company wishes to reach a multicultural audience who are willing to be challenged by an original and innovatory approach to Shakespeare.
After its premiere (in Italian) at the Teatro Antico in Segesta (Sicily) in August, this 55 minute monologue marks the return to The Rose of actor Marco Gambino, who has recently received international acclaim after appearing in popular Italian television series Squadra Antimafia and Young Montalbano.
Read More“Nature versus nurture? Are villains born or bred? Can they ever find true redemption? Theater OCU explores Shakespeare's most villainous characters - Macbeth, Iago, Aaron, Tamora and Lady Macbeth - and asks the question: what is bad Shakespeare?” --description from Fringe programme
This exploration of Shakespeare's villains focused on, among others, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, Iago, Tamora and Aaron, and Angelo from Measure for Measure.
Read MoreOthello
Soldiers and Sailors Monument, New York City, New York, USA
July 28 – August 21, 2016
Hudson Warehouse
Directed by Nicholas Martin-Smith
“Othello caps a 3-production series of Sephardic-infused works at the Center this winter and fall: previously productions included Merchant of Venice and the opera Nabucco.
In Othello - set in Venice, where Othello, a Moor and a venerated General, marries Desdemona, the daughter of a senator. After promoting young Cassio in the ranks, Othello's closest aide Iago becomes consumed by jealousy and plots to discredit Cassio and Desdemona, thus bringing Othello's life and career to a tragic end.” –description from Broadway World (link below, in “Selected Reviews and Media Coverage”
Read More“Through personal accounts written by Muslim girls and Shakespeare’s text of Othello, Al’ukhraa explores how our opinions of “the other” effect the community as a whole, and how the current political climate of fear is directly impacting our NYC high school girls.” –description from the company website
Read More“Ann-Marie MacDonald`s witty play is a sparkling comedic tale of self-discovery. Graduate Assistant Constance Leadbelly, who is obsessed with decoding Shakespearian manuscripts, is suddenly propelled into the world of Othello and Romeo and Juliet. She unintentionally alters them into comedies by saving the lives of the two leading ladies. Seductions, sword fights, and disguises ensue in this award winning Canadian play.”
Read MoreAll 74 on-stage deaths from Shakespeare's oeuvre realized in physical comedy by four actors. With a LED-display counter monitoring the 75 deaths (they include the fly in Titus Andronicus) and propelling the action to the zero, The Complete Deaths is a fast-paced and entertaining tribute to the tragic ends of so many of Shakespeare's characters.
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A remarkable performance featuring American actor Peter Macon as Othello and celebrated Irish Shakespearean Marty Rea, who won the Irish Times Best Actor award in 2015 for his searing portrayal of Richard II (and a panoply of other characters) in Druid Theatre Company's marathon adaptation of the Henriad, “DruidShakespeare.”
Read More“Italian opera’s greatest tragedy, Otello is a miraculous union of music and drama, a masterpiece as profound philosophically as it is thrilling theatrically. Shakespeare’s tale of an outsider, a great hero who can’t control his jealousy, was carefully molded by the librettist Arrigo Boito into a taut and powerful opera text. Otello almost wasn’t written: following the success of Aida and his setting of the Requiem mass in the early 1870s, Verdi considered himself retired, and it took Boito and publisher Giulio Ricordi several years to persuade him to take on a major new work.”
--description from the Metropolitan Opera website
“Best intentions… are what Angelica and Emilia, two modern adaptations of the often overlooked women from Shakespeare's Othello and Romeo and Juliet, definitely had before they ended up trapped in a room with a kitten puzzle. They must now take this opportunity to look more closely at their lives, the choices they made and how they came to be in this place. Through reasoning, deduction and slowly revealing their dark secrets, they discover that escape will warrant some honesty, as their 'best intentions' are not an excuse in the eyes of the law.” --description from Fringe programme.
Read MoreOne man’s hilarious interpretation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy. Māori Performance Mask (Te Mata Kokako o Rēhia) comes to life as Regan Taylor unfolds an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Othello as a solo performance. SolOTHELLO weaves together Shakespeare’s original prose, modern English and Te Reo Māori to deliver a dynamic and cheeky interpretation of one of history’s more tragic plays.
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“This stylish, fast-paced adaptation transfers the action to the cityscape of modern London. In the cutthroat financial world, we dive into an abyss of power and intrigue, riddled with suspicion and jealousy. Beneath the surface of this civilised and polite environment we encounter brutality and callousness. Everyone is under constant surveillance, private and business lives entwine, workers are caught in a bubble without privacy or time off outside the Corporation. There’s always someone watching you, analysing your every move and waiting for an opportunity to stab you in your back.”
Read More“A salt and pepper pot for the king and queen. A vase for the prince. A matchbox for the servant. A toilet roll tube for the Innkeeper. A water bottle for the messenger.
In Complete Works six performers create condensed versions of each and every Shakespeare play, comically and intimately retelling them, using a collection of everyday objects as stand-ins for the characters on the one-metre stage of an ordinary table top."
“Our Young Company returns with a production of Othello specially tailored for young audiences. Now beginning its second decade, this unique collaboration with the Graduate Acting Program of Columbia University’s School of the Arts has now grown to reach all five of New York’s boroughs, introducing more than 20,000 young people to the power of live theater and becoming a multi-year recipient of the Shakespeare in American Communities grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. CSC’s Young Company makes Shakespeare accessible, relevant, and fun to students through workshops and performances in schools and at our theater.” –information from the Classic Stage website
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Othello's story told by Shakespeare is a tragedy, and told by Verdi is a melodrama. What if the same story is told by an eclectic actress such as Marina Massironi? It becomes a hilarious set of circumstances about passions and intrigues moving from the 16th to 19th Centuries, with unexpected and pungent references to the original as well.
The Maynardville Shakespeare is an annual event that celebrates its sixtieth anniversary this year. This year's Othello is in fact a revival of the 2015 Maynardville production, which proved immensely popular.
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This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
