2019/20 Season
The Boatman ferries the dead across the water; but what happens if one day, a soul arrives who’s not ready for transport? This beautiful, darkly funny and theatrical play re-examines the classic myth of the River Styx.
Mom kills Dad and his mistress. Daughter vows vengeance. Along with her brother, she wreaks havoc with another bloody double murder. If that’s not a comedy, what is? Catherine Butterfield’s ELECTRA, REVISITED explores the lighter side of Greek tragedy with spectacle, poignancy and the occasional song.
Recovering from the destruction of World War I, two sisters seek sexual freedom, gender equality and love. D.H. Lawrence’s classic novel reemerges in a new stage adaptation that is as provocative and shocking today as it was in 1920.
Kaufman & Hart’s first collaboration, Once in a Lifetime, is an early-days-of-talking-pictures mad-cap comedy featuring some 60 characters. The story centers around three young down-at-the-heels friends who quit the vaudeville circuit and move out to Hollywood to teach elocution to would be screen actors in the brave new world of sound. Their dumb luck combined with the absurd nature of the burgeoning film industry propels them to new heights.
Drama critic Mortimer Brewster appears to lead a normal, happy life, until he discovers that his aunts have a deadly secret buried in the basement: a
dozen older gentlemen. Hilarity and madness ensue as he tries to wrangle his crazy aunts along with his brothers— Theodore, who believes he is Theodore Roosevelt; and maniacal, murderous Jonathan.
The Tempest is Shakespeare’s final play. A ship is wrecked in a mighty storm and the survivors are marooned on a mystical island controlled by the wizardly magician Prospero. What happens to them on this eventful day deals with the whole condition of man. Fathers will lose their children and discover them again. First love will bloom and revenge plots will be carried out. Shakespeare asks: can mercy triumph over vengeance? Can tyrants set free those they hold? Shakespeare’s masterpiece comes alive in a very contemporary fashion in this striking new adaptation by Kenneth Cavander.
Due to COVID-19, we have cancelled this reading. Please feel free to contact us at tickets@antaeus.org if you have any questions and continue to check our website and social media for updates.
Due to COVID-19, we have cancelled this reading. Please feel free to contact us at tickets@antaeus.org if you have any questions and continue to check our website and social media for updates.
Due to COVID-19, we have cancelled this reading. Please feel free to contact us at tickets@antaeus.org if you have any questions and continue to check our website and social media for updates.
Due to COVID-19, we have cancelled this reading. Please feel free to contact us at tickets@antaeus.org if you have any questions and continue to check our website and social media for updates.
Due to COVID-19, we have cancelled this reading. Please feel free to contact us at tickets@antaeus.org if you have any questions and continue to check our website and social media for updates.
2018/19 Season
George Bernard Shaw’s masterpiece Heartbreak House (“A Fantasia in the Russian Manner on English Themes”) was first produced in 1918, just after the end of WWI. Set in a country manor built in the shape of a ship and helmed by the somewhat mad Captain Shotover, the play maps the journey of ten souls adrift in a rapidly changing world where the old ways are dying and “a soul is a very expensive thing to keep.”
A spoiled rich boy, a working class girl, an illicit weekend…a shocking ending
Carnival time in Naples: disguises, mistaken identity, sword fights, a ton of Restoration wit and a joyful celebration of the female spirit, by the first woman to earn a living as a playwright.
“The poet of the world’s grief.” In what has been called the greatest anti-war play of all time, Euripides presents the pain, suffering, and resilience of the widowed Trojan women, about to become slaves of the Greeks after a brutal 10 years’ war. And all caused by a man’s lust for a beautiful seductress, or was it by the quarreling gods?
Bianca is a young Venetian “from parents great in wealth” who elopes with the poor Leantio, a Florentine. She soon draws the attention of the Duke of Florence, who attempts to woo her with the help of the widow Livia. Meanwhile, Livia’s brother is tormented because he is in love with their niece. In a society where the worst excesses of unbridled desires reign, what will befall them all?
Middleton was a collaborator of Shakespeare’s who wrote in a wide variety of genres and who had his work performed on a greater variety of stages than anyone of the period. Women Beware Women is considered to be one of his masterpieces.
Henry VI, Part 1 was included in the first Folio, but critics aren’t really sure if Shakespeare wrote any of it. Perhaps he did, but perhaps he had major help from Marlowe, Greene, or Peele. You be the judge and see if you can spot what is Shakespeare’s and what is not.
This play was selected by Armin Shimerman as one of a group of three plays that focus on Joan D’Arc or Joan La Puccelle.
Henry also dramatizes the origins of the War of the Roses. One of England’s major civil wars between the Plantagenet houses of York and Lancaster. Tribalism was alive and well even back then.
George Bernard Shaw’s delicious retelling of the Joan of Arc story brims with wit and spirit, but, of course, never shies from revealing the inevitable cruelty which comes when those who rule seek power over truth, dogma over dignity, and the law over a courageous, wild heart.
Written in 1953 as France was recovering from the Nazi occupation of WWII, L’Alouette examines collaboration and resistance – and what constitutes heresy. The divinely inspired warrior Joan of Arc has been imprisoned; the setting is her 15th century trial with flashbacks to her life. Both the English occupiers and Catholic bishops are strongly motivated to condemn her.
All’s Well That Ends Well tells the story of the brilliant, but low-born Helena, who wins the right to marry the high-born Bertram by saving the King’s life. Bertram rejects her, rushing off to war. However, his rejection does not curb Helena’s love, who pursues this battle of hearts even into the heart of battle.
How does a corrupt society transform itself? Does the restoration come from the authority of the state, either in its sanction of license or enforcement of law? Or does it, perhaps, come from the voices of those who have suffered the most? In arguably the most intriguing of his “problem” plays, the Bard explores the moral cost in the seeking of justice and the demand upon the human heart to recognize the power of mercy.
Timon’s compulsive generosity makes him the most popular man in Athens – until his funds run out. Now, embittered by ingratitude, what will happen when his city comes under attack?
