By Amy Somensky Oct 8, 2005, 18:11 GMT
The Queen's Company is a non-profit organization dedicated to innovative productions of classical plays featuring an all-female ethnically diverse company of actors which puts a contemporary spin on Shakespeare's brand of transgender casting. Their productions interweave contemporary music and movement sequences with top-notch Shakespearean performances. The Public Theater and New York Theater Workshop recently hosted their workshop production of King Lear featuring Myra Lucretia Taylor as Lear.
The Queen's Company was founded by Artistic Director Rebecca Patterson, who emphasizes that their mission is to offer female artists a broader range of roles with less focus on gender and race. Says Patterson, Fifty percent of the actors in equity are female and they get only forty percent of the roles and the numbers are even lower for actors of color. I think it's our responsibility as a New York theater company to reflect our city's diversity. I want to see a stage that looks like a New York City subway stop.
Visit www.queenscompany.org for more info.
The Taming Of The Shrew is Shakespeare's classic comedy about love between a perfect pair of divas. Everybody loves Bianca (played by a blow-up doll) but no one can marry her until her feisty older sister, Kate, is married off. Enter Petruchio, a finger-lickin ladies man on the lookout for a wealthy wife. Let the fireworks begin! Happy ending guaranteed.
Performances run November 5th to November 20th. Tickets are $15. Call (212) 868-4444 or visit www.smarttix.com.
Your Talkback on this Story