CHICAGO – Two Pence Theatre Co. proudly announces the second year of their popular reading series Dead Man’s Hand. Featuring 90 minute cuts of plays written by Shakespeare’s peers, friends and frenemies. Each reading features a new lineup of Chicago’s most exciting actors and directors in casual settings exploring these often overlooked gems (and the occasional hilarious stinker.) From Beaumont to Webster, and everyone in between, join Two Pence for a beer and hear what was going on in the theatre world when Olde English was modern, the streets had no gutters, and no one knew that ole’ Will Shakespeare would be the one to outshine them all. Each reading is “pay-what-you-can” and for more information visit http://www.twopencetheatre.org or https://www.facebook.com/TwoPenceTheatre
The 2014 Reading Season
Title: The Knight of the Burning Pestle
Find out what's happening in Lincoln Squarefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Playwright: Francis Beaumont (and probably John Fletcher)
Director: Eliza Hofman
Find out what's happening in Lincoln Squarefor free with the latest updates from Patch.
Featuring: Danielle Pinnock, Ned Baker, Adam Goldstein, Holly Allen, Brian Grey, Sigrid Sutter, Lucy Carapetyan and Jared Dennis and the music of bluegrass trio – The Bonesteelers.
When: Sunday, Feb. 23rd, 7 p.m
Where: The Atlantic Bar & Grill, 5062 N Lincoln Ave.
The grocer and his wife are sick of watching the same old theatre crap and they're not going to take it anymore. They storm the stage and cast their apprentice Rafe in a new play they call The Knight of the Burning Pestle, sending him on a quixotic quest to rescue the victims of Barbaroso ,the evil barber. Meanwhile, the real players are still attempting to put on the old play which is about...well. You'll see. Featuring local blugrass trio The Bonesteelers performing an opening set and in the reading as “ The Musicians” !
Title: The Rover
Playwright: Aphra Behn
Director: Shannon Fillion
When: Sunday, March 16th, 7 p.m.
Where: TBA
A former female spy for Charles II, Aphra Behn turned to playwriting to make some cash after the war. The Rover was her biggest success, weaving the Trifecta of Good Plots (love, betrayal, and revenge) into an intelligent portrayal of gender and power in the late 1600s.
Title: The Roaring Girl
Playwright: The Thomases: Middleton, Dekker and Wells
Adapted and Directed: Two Pence Artistic Director Tom Wells
When: Sunday, May 4
Where: TBD
Based on the real life thief Mary Frith "most notorious female member of 17th-century England’s underworld" The Roaring Girl centers on Moll Cutpurse, just a cross dressing lady trying to mind her own. But marked as the town’s Girl You Least Want To Marry, she suddenly finds herself the center of everybody's nasty business. Come get the first peak of our unique adaptation of this incredible play, slated for a full Two Pence production in 2015.
Title: The Revenger’s Tragedy
Playwright: Thomas Middleton
Director: TBA
When: Sunday, Oct. 26
Where: TBA
Join Two Pence for a very special Halloween reading of The Revenger’s Tragedy with a special focus on the outrageous stage violence. Written when King James was widely suspected of poisoning the English crown with corruption, the playwrights took their revenge to the stage. Middleton wrote one of the best with this Italian tale of brotherly grief, rape, and murder.
About Two Pence Theatre Co.
TWO PENCE THEATRE COMPANY provides the Chicago area with intimate and dynamic experiences of Shakespeare and other artists inspired by the principles of the Renaissance. Founded in 2009, Two Pence produces professional productions, modern mash-ups, staged readings in casual settings and a vast array of educational programming for adults and K - 12 students. In the past five years Two Pence has garnered praise for their professional work, served public and private school students, and partnered with U.S. veterans, visual artists, local business leaders and more. Two Pence believes that Chicago deserves a wide variety of ways to experience Shakespeare, from those experiences to develop a unique and personal relationship with him and from this relationship to gain deeper insight into ourselves, illuminating what it means to be human. For more information visit www.twopencetheatre.org.
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