by William Shakespeare
WHEN: Wednesday, November 14, at 7:00 PM
WHERE: Kutz Theatre at the Lackland Performing Arts Center, 715 Grand Ave., Hackettstown
ADMISSION: free
Due to limited seating, advance reservations are highly recommended. For more information about the King Lear reading, all Gates Ferry Lecture Series’ “What is Truth?” events or to reserve tickets, please call the Centenary Stage Company box office at (908) 979 0900 or visit www.centenarystageco.org.
Randall Duk Kim and Anne Occhiogrosso return to headline Centenary Stage Company’s Gates Ferry Series presentation with a free staged reading of Shakespeare’s monumental drama King Lear.
The November 14 reading and the master classes that precede and follow it marks the continuation of the 2018 Gates Ferry Lecture Series: “What is Truth?” The November 14 reading will be the second of three presentations, all featuring Kim and Occhiogrosso, which also includes a full stage production of Henrik Ibsen’s Enemy of The People from February 15-March 3, 2019.
Kim and Occhiogrosso originally proposed the 2018 Gate Ferry Lecture Series, “What is Truth? And Does It Matter?” with the goal to encourage a public dialogue surrounding this most serious of contemporary issues. Following the reading of select scenes from King Lear, Kim and Occhiogrosso and members of the Centenary University academic community will lead an in-depth audience discussion of the play and its relevance to today’s world.
Occhiogrosso states, “In this time of ‘Fake News,’ and ‘Alternative Truths’ and convenient omission of the facts, one is forced to ask ‘What is Truth? And Does It Really Matter?’ Kim adds, "Both these questions have served as the core inquiry of the world’s greatest and most popular playwrights over the past two thousand years. The theatre allows us to see man’s encounter with this mightiest and perplexing concept. We can see how they encounter it, try to escape it, hide from it, expose it and deny it, and how it affects their lives and the consequences endured through its encounter.”
For over 40 years, Randall Duk Kim and Anne Occhiogrosso have devoted their lives to the classical theatre through acting, directing teaching, commissioning new translations of classical works and developing a singular approach to classical text interpretation which combines, research, training and production. This life-long dedication to classical theatre led to their founding, in 1979, along with founding partner Charles J. Bright, now deceased, of American Players Theatre, Spring Green, WI, the only professional, outdoor classical rotating repertory theatre company in America at that time. Under their combined leadership, American Players Theatre received a Tony Award nomination in 1985 for “Outstanding Regional Theatre in America.”
As creators of the Centenary Stage Company series “Great Authors Out Loud,” Kim and Occhiogrosso have offered readings from authors Edgar Alan Poe, Mark Twain, Dorothy Parker and James Thurber and classical theatre playwrights William Shakespeare, Sophocles, Moliere, Chekhov and Ibsen which has drawn a loyal and enthusiastic following since 2012.
In addition to the readings, they have taught a Shakespeare Intensive Course at Centenary College in which students study one play over a thirteen week period. The last three semesters focused on Hamlet, The Merchant of Venice and King Lear.
The Centenary Stage Company box office is located in the Lackland Performing Arts Center at 715 Grand Ave. Hackettstown, NJ on the campus of Centenary University. The box office is open Monday through Friday from 1 – 5PM and two hours prior to every scheduled performance event. Centenary Stage Company can also be found across social media platforms; Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. “Like” and “follow” to receive the latest in Centenary Stage Company news and special offers.
The 2018-2019 season of Centenary Stage Company’s performing arts events is made possible through the generous support of the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, the NJ State Council on the Arts, the Shubert Foundation, the Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, the Sandra Kupperman Foundation, and CSC corporate sponsors, including Premier Season Sponsor Heath Village Retirement Community and The House of the Good Shepherd, Silver Sponsors HMC Atlantic Health, Home Instead Senior Care (Washington), Fulton Bank of New Jersey, and Centenary Stage Company members and supporters.