Our proposed productions for our 2023 / 2024 season are detailed below.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare
A vibrant and remarkably original production of Shakespeare’s most beloved comedy. In true form, New Art Theatre showcases America’s promising ‘up and coming’ masters of classical theatre: actors, musicians, designers and technicians, in this music-infused celebration of the follies and foibles of mortal souls and fairy sprites.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream glows with a sense of love in all its forms — innocent, irrational, brotherly/sisterly, unwavering. Join New Art Theatre in a fresh approach of this cherished classic that promises to take you on an unforgettable adventure! ‘Glowing with Love and Magic’, this engaging new production of Shakespeare’s family friendly comedy will delight audience members of all ages.”
‘POEms’, Poetry and Prose of Edgar Allan Poe in performance
New Art Theatre imaginatively stages visionary poems and tales of terror, the hallmark of America’s strange and haunted 19th Century literary genius. Using ensemble staging, choric interpretation of spoken language and chamber theatre scripted techniques, audiences experience innovative and evocative aural and physical performance imagery that brings the works of Edgar Allan Poe to life. New Art Theatre’s staging possesses qualities of contemporary dance, pagan ritual and abstract expressionist painting. The production is not the ‘Boogeyman’ approach to Mr. Poe. It is exploratory; it is insightful; it is an intelligent and poetic rendering of the dark and romantic inner world and psyche of Edgar Allan Poe.
Hamlet by William Shakespeare
A re-staging of New Art Theatre’s acclaimed production of the world’s greatest play (arguably) the sublime Hamlet by William Shakespeare. No play in the English language investigates more thoroughly the joy, grief, irony, and ambiguity of being human in a confusing and chaotic world. No play has been more widely studied; no play has been more widely quoted, either, from ‘what a piece of work is a man’ to ‘to be or not to be, that is the question’.
This is Hamlet as you’ve never seen it before. Power packed into 90 minutes, New Art Theatre’s production thunders with vitality, clarity, and momentum without losing the extraordinary power of its language or the complexity of its relationships which make the play an artistic masterpiece. The direction draws on an enormous range of visionary research from such scholars as Stanley Wells and, Harold Bloom, to the ideas of novelist John Updike.
Agamemnon by Aeschylus
Whether we talk about the justice of war, the effects of man made climate change, the rights of one group of people to hold power over another, the division between God (or Gods) and Man, or the corruption of absolute power, we are having the same conversation that the Greek tragedian Aeschylus wrote about in the Oresteia trilogy that began with Agamemnon, 2500 years ago. Now, using British Poet Laureate Ted Hughes acclaimed translation, New Art Theatre presents a 21st Century retelling of Agamemnon as modern, gripping, and complex as the issues behind our daily lives and the evening news. New Art Theatre’s innovative performance style and modern dress production is an intimate, understandable and immediate rendition of an ancient classic that both respects the story and engages modern sensibilities. If you have been riveted by ‘The Game of Thrones’ – you’ll love Agamemnon, the story that spawned it! As always with New Art Theatre’s extraordinary classic productions, there will be an informed and revealing ‘talk’back’ with the company after each enthralling performance.
“Aeschylus, the fifth-century BC Attic tragedian, is famous for his knottiness… Ted Hughes in his posthumously published translation of the Orestes trilogy, unties the knots and unpacks the compounded thoughts”
-New York Times
“Hughes translation conveys a sense of the menacing strength of Aeschylus’ poetry”
-The Washington Times
