Theatre for a New Audience's Winter-Spring Shakespeare Season which begins with Othello (February 14 - March 7) continues with Hamlet which previews Sunday, March 15, at 7:00pm, opens Thursday, March 26, at 6:30pm and plays through April 19. Both productions play at The Duke on 42nd Street SM, a New 42nd Street® project, 229 West 42nd Street.
Hamlet features Christian Camargo in the title role. The production is directed by David Esbjornson. Joining Mr. Camargo will be Alyssa Bresnahan as Gertrude, Alvin Epstein as Polonius, Graham Hamilton as Laertes, Jennifer Ikeda as Ophelia and Patrick Page as Claudius.
Jeffrey Horowitz, Artistic Director said, "Theatre for a New Audience's cornerstone is Shakespeare. We're thrilled to be presenting two great tragedies each with full casts. Together these productions are employing a total of 29 Actor Equity actors and stage managers. This is the first time we are producing Hamlet and the second time we have produced Othello. Both plays are particularly apt for our times. As, in our 2007 presentations of Marlowe's The Jew of Malta and Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, our 2009 Winter-Spring Shakespeare season is representative of our plans to produce major classic plays in relation to one another."
Christian Camargo, who played the title role in Theatre for a New Audience's production of Coriolanus, plays Hamlet. Mr. Camargo most recently appeared on Broadway in Arthur Miller's All My Sons directed by Simon McBurney and previously in David Hare's Skylight with Michael Gambon. Other appearances include London's Shakespeare's Globe with Mark Rylance and the Showtime drama, Dexter, in which he played the role of Rudy Cooper.
Alyssa Bresnahan (Off-Broadway: Necessary Targets, Film: The Wrestler, 27 Dresses; RSC: Tantalus directed by Sir Peter Hall and Edward Hall), Alvin Epstein (Broadway includes The Three Penny Opera, A Kurt Weill Cabaret, Waiting for Godot and Off-Broadway, the title role in King Lear), Graham Hamilton (Old Globe: All's Well That Ends Well and Romeo and Juliet directed by Darko Tresnjak; NYSF The Two Noble Kinsmen directed by Darko Tresnjak), Jennifer Ikeda (for Theatre for a New Audience, Coriolanuis, for Manhattan Theatre Club, Top Girls, for Red Bull, Women Beware Women and for the New York Shakespeare Theatre at the Delacorte, As You Like It) and Patrick Page (Broadway: A Man for All, Julius Caesar, The Lion King and The Kentucky Cycle; Washington's Shakespeare Theatre: Macbeth, Othello).
David Esbjornson was the Artistic Director of the Tony Award winning Seattle Repertory Theatre. Other credits include Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing at the Delacorte; the Broadway productions of Edward Albee's Tony Award-winning play The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? and Arthur Miller's Ride Down Mount Morgan. Off-Broadway, he staged the acclaimed revival of Larry Kramer's The Normal Heart and at Classic Stage Company, where Mr. Esbjornson was Artistic Director, his productions included Thér se Raquin (OBIE for Direction), The Entertainer (Drama League Nomination Best Revival) and Endgame by Samuel Beckett (Drama Desk Nomination Best Revival).
