TWO RIVER CONCLUDES TWO RIVER RISING ONLINE BENEFIT READING SERIES WITH A MODERN VERSE ADAPTATION OF ROMEO AND JULIET
TWO RIVER RISING: ROMEO AND JULIET
WHEN: live on Wed, Sept 30, with Act 1. Act 2, followed by a Q&A with the artists, will take place on Thurs, Oct 1, at 7PM EDT.
WHERE: Two River Theater will also stream the reading on YouTube from Thursday, October 1, at 7PM EDT through Sunday, October 4, at 7PM EDT. Streaming is free and donations of any amount from viewers will be greatly appreciated.
TICKETS: Online benefit event tickets are $25 and include access to Acts 1 and 2 of the reading and a live post-reading Q&A with the artists, hosted on Zoom. Sponsorships start at $1,000, and include additional benefits such as an invitation to a private virtual event with reading artists.
For more information on the Romeo and Juliet reading visit: https://tworivertheater.org/whats-on/romeo-and-juliet-reading-series/
For more information on the Two River Rising series visit: tworivertheater.org/tworiverrising
Two River Theater concludes its online benefit reading series with Shakespeare’s classic story of two young star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet in a modern verse translation by Hansol Jung.
“To most theater lovers, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is a dramatic palimpsest; resonant and complicated, it remains a core myth for many. Itself layered with borrowed stories and cultural appropriation, R&J beats with a universal heart of love and hate. The play still has much to teach us and I love the echoes and layers that Hansol has added to it,” says Two River’s Artistic Director John Dias.
Last year Two River Theater announced a partnership with Off-Broadway’s NAATCO (National Asian American Theatre Company) and their Artistic Director Mia Katigbak (Two River’s I Remember Mama).Two River is also working on an ambitious project to produce a festival built around Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. As part of that project, we plan to produce, in partnership with NAATCO, this modern verse translation of the Shakespeare classic by South Korean playwright, Hansol Jung (Wild Goose Dreams, Cardboard Piano). The translation was originally commissioned by Oregon Shakespeare Festival as part of “Play on! 36 playwrights translate Shakespeare.”
The reading will feature: Tina Chilip (Much Ado About Nothing,
Marvel’s Jessica Jones), Joel de la
Fuente(Comedy of Errors, The Man in the High Castle), Stephanie
Hsu (Be More
Chill, SpongeBob SquarePants),David Huynh (Mysterious Skin, Henry VI), Vanessa
Kai (Henry
VI, The Pain of my Belligerence), Mia Katigbak (The Headlands, The Trial of
the Catonsville Nine) Andrew Pang (Thoroughly Modern Millie), Jon
Norman Schneider (Edith
Can Shoot Things and Hit Them, Awake and Sing!), Mitchell Winter (Alcatraz, Chaos) and Jeena Yi (Judgement
Day, Network).
All proceeds from this reading and the entire series will support Two River Theater. In addition, proceeds will be matched by a generous donor to benefit five organizations with a pressing need due to the impact of systemic racism and COVID-19. The beneficiary partner for this reading is to be announced.
FOR EDUCATORS:
A special program has been launched for our reading of Romeo
and Juliet to help support educators during the start of
an unprecedented academic year. Teachers and students are eligible for
free access to the reading with an option to add on a free post-show workshop
for their class. A limited amount of workshops will be scheduled on a
first-come, first-served basis with a Two River teaching artist.
For more details on free Educator access and to RSVP your class: https://tworivertheater.org/whats-on/two-river-rising-romeo-and-juliet-educator-access/
The Two River Rising Series is
sponsored by Bank of America.
The series is supported in part
with contributions from the Hitz Foundation, The Nancy Robin Karpf Fund,
Katherine Kovner, Mary Jane and Richard Kroon.
Two River Theater’s 2020/21 Season Sponsor is Hackensack Meridian Health Riverview Medical Center. Two River Theater is supported in part by public support through the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Private support includes the Mary Owen Borden Foundation, Denholtz Properties, The Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Horizon Foundation of New Jersey, Investors Foundation, Jewish Communal Fund, Jewish Federation in the Heart of New Jersey, The Blanche and Irving Laurie Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Monmouth University, The Shubert Foundation, The John Ben Snow Memorial Trust, Springpoint Senior Living Foundation at The Atrium at Navesink Harbor, The Harold and Mimi Steinberg Charitable Trust, The Stone Foundation of New Jersey, Wells Fargo Foundation, and many other generous foundations, corporations and individuals.
Two River Theater produces a theatrical season that includes
American and world classics, new plays and musicals, programs for young people,
and festivals of new work. Each year, we also offer 40+ events that reflect our
diverse community of Red Bank, New Jersey. Two River produces work on two
stages—the 350-seat Rechnitz Theater, and the flexible 110-seat Marion Huber
Theater. The
theater’s recently opened Center for
New Work, Education and Design is a
three-story facility that includes two rehearsal studios, artist labs, classrooms, expanded
shops and
centrally located
offices. Two River Theater has commissioned and premiered
original projects including Be More
Chill by Tony
Award nominee Joe Iconis and Joe Tracz (the theater’s first Broadway
production) and Hurricane
Diane by
Playwright-in-Residence Madeleine George (which won an Obie Award for its
Off-Broadway run). In June 2019, Two River was nationally recognized by USA
TODAY as one of “10 great places to see a play” across the U.S. Two
River serves thousands of students and community members through arts and
humanities programs at the theater, in schools and throughout its region. Two River Theater is led by Artistic Director John Dias and
Managing Director Michael Hurst.
ZOOM SNEAK-PREVIEW
Directed by Maren Sugarman 
by Ruth Ross
By now, everyone knows—or should know—the story of these “star-cross’d lovers.” Romeo Montague, rejected in love by the fair Rosaline, crashes a party and falls hard for the not-yet-fourteen-year-old Juliet Capulet, daughter of his father’s sworn enemy. The two children pledge eternal love and, with the aid of a sympathetic friar, marry, only to have Romeo banished to Mantua for his role in a street brawl in which his best friend Mercutio and Juliet’s cousin Tybalt are killed. In an attempt to thwart her father’s directive to wed Count Paris, the grieving Juliet, swallows a potion to give her the appearance of death and is buried in the family tomb, with plans to awaken in time for Romeo’s return to Verona to claim her. Unaware of the scheme, Romeo kills himself upon discovering her cold corpse, and Juliet, finding her dead husband sprawled on the floor of the tomb, uses his dagger to commit suicide, thus meting out to the warring Montagues and Capulets the harshest punishment of all: the loss of their children and heirs to their names. (Above, right: Mark Elliot Wilson with Erin Partin and Miranda Rizzolo)
Keshav Moodliar’s Romeo (Right, with Hickox-Young) is coltish, difficult to contain as he rides the waves of his unbridled emotion. Isaac Hickox-Young’s Benvolio works tirelessly, first to find a more likely girl than the fickle Rosaline and later, to control hotheaded Mercutio (Joshua David Robinson) and Romeo, both of whom throw caution to the winds in the confrontation with Torsten Johnson’s contentious, ready-to-rumble Tybalt. Matt Sullivan’s Friar Lawrence was a bit too subdued, especially for one who hopes to bring an end to the feud through the forbidden marriage, and Michael Dale played Lord Montague a bit too nonchalantly. 
Erin Partin (left, with Miranda Rizzolo) is a cold, distant Lady Capulet, who leaves childrearing to the bawdy Nurse (Aedin Maloney) while Mark Elliot Wilson’s Lord Capulet is scary when raging at a recalcitrant daughter who refuses to follow his orders to wed Count Paris (Ryan Woods). Miranda Rizzolo as Juliet is lovely, although she rushes her speeches (e.g., “Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo) to such an extent that the wonder of falling in love for the very first time was lost. 
Ten years ago, in a review of STNJ’s Romeo and Juliet, I wrote, “The loss of these two lives of promise, the loss of joy and innocence, has ramifications for modern adults. Racial/religious animosities, the ready availability of guns, the current school shootings and rumors of imminent terrorism point to a loss of innocence in our own society.” Unfortunately, irrational and volatile hatred are societal hallmarks today, making the old saying, “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” sad but true. I just wish that, this time out, the Bard’s poetry soared higher in a production more worthy of this great theatrical troupe.
Coriolanus 
The Chester Theatre Group is presenting what some consider "the greatest play ever written: William Shakespeare's King Lear.” Certainly, one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies, the play has been widely adapted for the stage and motion pictures, with the title role coveted by many of the world's most accomplished actors, such as Ian Holm and Anthony Hopkins.
He is supported by a marvelous cast, many new to the CTG audience, they include in particular; Lisa Barnett as Goneril, Lear’s eldest daughter; Sky Spiegel Monroe as Regan (left), Lear’s second daughter;and Madelyn Barkocy (above, left) as Cordelia, the youngest daughter. As the play opens, the three daughters and the court are informed by Lear that he is weary of governing and has decided to reward his three daughters by dividing his kingdom into three parts. A big however, is his demand that each daughter express their love and devotion to him. The two oldest profess that there is no man they love more than their father. The third, and youngest, Cordelia chastises her sisters for declaring a greater love for father over husband. Even unmarried, she scorns this insincere display of affection. Lear is furious to the point he banishes her from the Kingdom. She gains an enormous consolation prize when her suitor, and King of France (Eric Craft), makes her his bride.
Her selfish, ambitious sisters are the principal villains, first when they turn their mad father out into the storm and then when they viciously put out the Earl of Gloucester’s eyes for his loyalty to the King. Matt Meier is spot-on as Gloucester, as is Derek Egidio as Edgar (right). Mark Harvey as the loyal Earl of Kent and Michael Yoder as Edmund an impressive villain. The King has no more loyal servant than his Fool (Court Jester) played with appropriate passion by Sarah Henley. George LaVigne, Jack Roberts, Keith Hoovler round out this exceptional cast. The ensemble players (soldiers, guards, and servants) include Ted Holland, Jim Quikstad, and Amie Quivey.
Director Cameron (right) offers this advice: “Don’t go nuts trying to understand every word. Feel what the music says those words want to accomplish. I never intended to love opera, but unavoidable encounters made me love it. The music demanded I love it. I heard La Boheme in Italian but never had any doubt what was going on. The music taught me. Let your ears teach your eyes how, what, to see.”
While Shakespeare isn't often thought of as a political playwright, one has but to consider Macbeth, Julius Caesar, the History Plays, Othello, Measure for Measure and Much Ado About Nothing (the last three about sexual politics) for proof. Now, in this current political season fraught with name-calling, innuendo and fear-mongering, the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey has selected what is perhaps the Bard's most overtly political play, Coriolanus, as its second main stage production of the 2016 season. 
Leading the mob of commoners, Mike Magliocci is a very vocal First Citizen. And as the two tribunes appointed to represent the commoners in the Senate, John Ahlin (Junius Brutus) and Corey Tazmania (Sicinius Velutus) start off as reasonable representatives but morph quickly into rabble rousers whipping the crowd to a frenzy and driving Coriolanus into exile. (Above, right: John Ahlin and ensemble. Photo credit: Jerry Dalia.)