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This performance of The Winter’s Tale by AMERINDA, a Native American cast and crew, uses Shakespeare's play to explore contemporary themes like environmental destruction, political climates of division, and questions of the laws of nations.
Read MoreTwo generations overcome past wrongs and misjudgments in this exotic and magical saga. Obsessive King Leontes accuses his queen, Hermione, of having an affair and sentences her to a trial. Meanwhile their infant daughter gets spirited away to a distant shore. Sixteen years later, through fate and love, the young woman discovers her true heritage and reunites her family.
Read More“Following the stunning international success of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, the renowned British choreographer Christopher Wheeldon returns with a ballet every bit as lavishly imagined, boldly expressed and consummately entertaining as the earlier work. Turning again to a classic work of English literature for inspiration, Mr. Wheeldon has adapted The Winter’s Tale, Shakespeare’s late romance that combines elements of fairy-tale, comedy, tragedy and fantasy, all of which the ballet embraces with the same inventive staging, astute characterization and precise emotional register for which the choreographer is so admired.” –description from the National Ballet website
Read MoreThe Winter’s Tale
Presented in English
Various city parks in New York City, New York, USA
July 18 – August 14, 2016 (open rehearsals beginning June 19)
New York Classical Theatre
For More Information:
http://www.newyorkclassical.org/pastproductions/
Selected Reviews and Media Coverage:
http://www.lightingandsoundamerica.com/news/story.asp?ID=-QUHO1Z
“Shakespeare in Delaware Park is a not-for-profit, professional theatre company dedicated to providing free, high-quality public theatre to the widest possible audience. Our goal is to enrich, inspire and entertain diverse audiences through performance and educational programming, with a focus on the works of William Shakespeare. We are committed to mentoring students and professionals, and offering adults and children opportunities to experience and appreciate live theatre.
Shakespeare in Delaware Park has been a Buffalo summer tradition since 1976. Our spectacular performances take place in a historic park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, father of landscape architecture. Behind the park’s rose garden stands our grand Tudor-Style stage on a sweeping hill of green. In this beautiful setting under the stars where Shakespeare’s stories live on to explore the truths of the human heart; tragedy, jealousy, foolishness, passion, laughter, and love.” –from the company website
Read More“The Winter’s Tale explores the unsteady, unsettling, poisonous realm of jealousy and distrust as a childhood friendship is irrevocably torn apart by a grievous misunderstanding.
King Leontes of Sicilia accuses his pregnant wife, Hermione, of infidelity with best friend and fellow King of neighboring Bohemia, Polixenes. His rage and misguided tyranny results in the plot to have the King of Bohemia killed, banish the newborn baby girl, imprison his innocent wife, and turn his stunned staff and nation against him. Directed by Artistic Director of AASC, L. Peter Callender, this study of love, jealousy, tyranny and ultimate forgiveness will bring all the complicated plot twists, memorable characters and one of Shakespeare’s most magical and romantic and unforgettable endings to life.” –blurb from the African American Shakespeare Company’s website
Read MoreA season of sorrow ends in joy. King Leontes is blessed with a beautiful queen, a son and a baby daughter-to-be, but he loses them all when his mind becomes poisoned by jealousy. During the bleak spiritual winter that follows, faithful friends and a divine oracle slowly lead him back to sanity and a glorious reunion with those he lost. Director Desdemona Chiang will present The Winter’s Tale from an Asian and Asian-American perspective, setting it in dynastic China and America’s Old West.
Read MoreShakespeare's late romance, The Winter's Tale (a tale of jealous furies, an abandoned baby, a sheep shearing feast and a bear) was performed in The Willow Globe (Y Glôb Byw), a scaled down, living version of the Globe in London (a third of its size in diameter) in Llandrindod Wells, Powys, Wales. Its Artistic Directors Phil Bowen and Sue Best believe it is one of the largest willow constructions in the country and probably the only one in use as a theatre in the world.
Read MoreDirector Margarita Mladenova, co-founder of Sfumato, decided to stage her version of The Winter’s Tale in a snow-white setting; scenes and costumes are therefore signs of the ice cold life after humans lose love. As she stated, The Winter's Tale "is about a human who is lost and destroys his own life and the life of his closest kin." The sets suggest the characters are being treated in a sort of hospital's ward or, worse, they are already in a mortuary room.
Read MoreThe Winter's Tale is the second performance in the BSF's 2016 "Play On" season. The BSF is dedicated to exploring Shakespeare and bringing the Bard's work to the community. The company works with other theaters and educational institutions in the Baltimore-Washington area. This is their second OP production. The company is dedicated to using Shakespeare's staging conditions, so the live music is not amplified artificially, and universal lighting is used for all shows.
Read MoreThe Winter's Tale. The Chronicles of Perdita is the first production of this Shakespeare comedy. It is made possible thanks to the sponsorship of the British Council (as part of their global project "Shakespeare Lives!"). The director has combined the play itself and the chronology of Ukrainian history:
Act 1: takes place in the time of Kievan Rus
Act 2: is connected to the period of Cossacks
Act 3: shows Ukraine as a part of the Russian Empire
Act 4: evokes modern time
Act 5: represents the present-day atmosphere
Such clear division is achieved with costumes that change from act to act. The unifying aspect of all the stage garments is that they each have elements made from transparent cellophane. This unexpected scenographic solution brings additional meaning to every act of the play; all the cast members seem as if naked, totally exposed to the spectators. Their secret dreams, desires and hopes are no secret any more. The performance is a bright mixture of Shakespearean text and modern Ukrainian context conveyed through brilliant acting and directing.
“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."
Keeping the human and divine in exquisite balance, The Winter’s Tale combines the exotic and magical with the realistic psychology of the tragedies.
Read More“One of Shakespeare's greatest plays, The Winter's Tale, though written at the same period as The Tempest, smashes all the rules that The Tempest follows. Unity of time, place and action are hurled aside as we range across Europe, from court to country, from high tragedy to low comedy, across a time span of sixteen years.
The Winter's Tale tells of a delusional and paranoid king who tears his family apart. But this is the new Shakespeare, after he completed his great tragedies, and the tough struggle for redemption yields flickers of hope. Initial darkness gives way to joy as Time leads the characters to a shattering conclusion...
Produced by Cheek by Jowl in a co-production with the Barbican, London; Les Gémeaux/Sceaux/Scène Nationale; Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg; Piccolo Teatro di Milano - Teatro d'Europa; Chicago Shakespeare Theater; Centro Dramático Nacional, Madrid (INAEM)” (Information from the Cheek by Jowl website)
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This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
