Robbins and the Theatre Company Will Take the Production to Beijing, China
June 10th–15th, Shanghai, China June 19th – 21st and to Italy June 28th–July 6th at the Spoleto Festival
LOS ANGELES, CA, APRIL 28, 2014 – The Actors’ Gang,
the critically acclaimed Los Angeles based ensemble Theatre Company, will be heading overseas bringing William Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Academy Award® winner Tim Robbins, to international audiences. The production will put on six performances in Beijing, China, June 10th
– 15th at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, four performances in Shanghai, China, June 19th – 21st at the Daguan Theatre, Zendai Himalayas Art Center and four to six performances in Italy, June 28th
– July 6th at the prestigious Spoleto Festival.
The
Actors’ Gang is only the second American theatre company to perform at
China’s National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA)
and is the only American company to participate in the NCPA’s 2014
Shakespeare Festival. The NCPA is China’s largest and most prestigious
performing arts center in the country. The China tour is produced by
Ping Pong Productions, a Beijing-based cultural exchange
production company. The Actors' Gang production of A Midsummer Night’s
Dream, joins the Berliner Ensemble production of Peter Pan
directed by Robert Wilson as the featured productions at the Spoleto
Festival in Italy. The Italy tour is produced by the Change Performing
Arts Company, a Milan-based independent production
company.
For
over 33 years, Robbins has served as the Artistic Director of The
Actors’ Gang. In addition to over a hundred and fifty productions
produced at The Actors’ Gang Los Angeles base of operations, the award
winning company has toured extensively throughout the United States and
to five continents throughout the world with productions such as
Embedded, George Orwells’ 1984, The Exonerated, The Guys, Tartuffe, Carnage,
and The Trial of Catonsville Nine. The Actors’ Gang has
toured in London, Madrid, Barcelona, Athens, Bogota, Buenos Aires, Hong
Kong and Melbourne as well as throughout the United States and Mexico.
The
Actors’ Gang is one of the only true theatrical ensembles in the United
States that tours internationally. Ensemble members
train together regularly and develop pieces through a rigorous workshop
process. The actors in the company, in addition to their training and
performance schedule also are educators in the LAUSD school system and
dedicated participants in The Actors’ Gang
Prison Project. With few U.S. companies touring internationally, the
company considers it an honor to bring Shakespeare to China and to
perform at the distinguished Spoleto Festival in Italy.
“On behalf of The Actors’ Gang, we’re extremely proud to bring our production of William Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream to audiences around the world,” said
Director, Tim Robbins. “For decades I have had the privilege of working
with so many talented artists as part of this theatre company, and
whenever we go on tour it is a rare and great pleasure
to share our passion for theater with artists and audiences throughout
the world. We always learn something new, are inspired by other theater
artists we meet at festivals and come back to LA richer for the
experience. I expect Beijing and Spoleto will be
as inspirational, if not more so, than our previous tours.”
William Shakespeare’s
A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a surreal world of fairies, spells,
incantations, lovers bewitched by magic, the Fairy Queen making love to
an ass, the world in disorder made right by the mischief of the night.
Fourteen actors from The Actors’ Gang working
with director Tim Robbins and the company’s Co-Artistic Director,
Cynthia Ettinger illuminate Shakespeare’s forest with original music,
kinesthetic movement and a fervent approach to the surreality and magic
of the language of the play.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be presented with minimal
costumes, props and scenery, relying mainly on Shakespeare's
extraordinary text and the creative imagination of its players to
realize this magical world.
In its extended run at The Actors’ Gang in Los Angeles, The Huffington Post said,
“The trust that the actors displayed for Tim Robbins' intense vision,
the commitment that they made to their roles, and the love and respect
that they showed for each other, the language, the play, Shakespeare,
the theater in general and their theater in
particular, were magical, riveting, and inspiring."
ABOUT THE DIRECTOR, TIM ROBBINS
Tim Robbins ranks among contemporary cinema’s most acclaimed and provocative voices; a multifaceted talent, who has acted in,
written, directed and produced films including Mystic River, Catch a Fire, Dead Man Walking, The Shawshank Redemption, The Player, Bob Roberts, Bull Durham, Jacobs Ladder, Hudsucker Proxy, The
Secret Life of Words and Cradle Will Rock.
In
addition Robbins has worked consistently in the theater for the past 33
years as an actor, director, playwright and artistic
director of The Actors’ Gang. Robbins has also been instrumental in the
development and expansion of education and outreach programs at The
Actors’ Gang, arts programs that have reached thousands of children
currently without school funding for theater programs.
In addition Robbins and several other Actors’ Gang members regularly
conduct theater workshops with incarcerated men and women in an effort
to fill the gap in arts rehabilitation programs in the California
corrections system.
ABOUT THE ACTORS’ GANG
For
33 years, The Actors’ Gang has received international acclaim for
presenting over 150 new, unconventional and uncompromising
plays and dynamic reinterpretations of the classics in Los Angeles,
throughout the United States, and on five continents. Guided by Founding
Artistic Director, Tim Robbins, and Co-Artistic Director, Cynthia
Ettinger, the company was founded in 1981 by a group
of likeminded artists looking to create theater relevant to the society
we live in and restore the ancient sense of the stage as a shared
sacred space.
The
Actors' Gang has presented the work of innovative theater artists
including Georges Bigot and Simon Abkarian of the Theatre
du Soleil, Bill Rauch and the Cornerstone Theatre Company, Culture
Clash, Oskar Eustis, Tracy Young, Charles Mee, Ellen McLaughlin, Roger
Guenver Smith, Eric Bogosian, David Schweizer, Danny Hoch, Beth Milles,
Brian Kulick, Stefan Haves, Namaste Theater Company,
Jason Reed, Michael Schlitt, and Tenacious D.
The
Actors' Gang ensemble has included accomplished actors such as Jack
Black, John Cusack, John C. Reilly, Helen Hunt, Jeremy
Piven, Jon Favreau, Kate Walsh, Fisher Stevens, Ebbe Roe Smith, Brent
Hinkley, Kate Mulligan, Lee Arenberg, Kyle Gass and Tim Robbins.
The Actors’ Gang began touring its productions throughout the world in 1989, representing the US at the Edinburgh Festival with Carnage,
a Comedy before moving to the Public Theater in New York. Since
then, the company has toured in Europe, Asia, Australia, Central and
South America and throughout the US with productions such as 1984, The Trial of the Catonsville 9, Tartuffe, The Guys,
The Exonerated and Embedded. In 2004, The Actors’ Gang performed its anti-Iraq war satire Embedded to
four months of sold-out houses at New York’s Public Theater and then
went on to a successful run at the Riverside Theater in London. In 2001 Bat
Boy: The Musical, developed at The Actors’ Gang, won the Lucille Lortel and Outer Critics awards for best new musical Off-Broadway.
The
Gang has received many prestigious awards in Los Angeles for its
productions including the Margaret Hartford Award for Continued
Excellence, and has received numerous commendations and honors for it
social outreach, education programs and prison work.
