Overview

Creative Team
SIBYL WICKERSHEIMER: Scenic Designer; RAQUEL BARRETO: Costume Designer; CHRISTOPHER AKERLIND: Lighting Designer; PAUL JAMES PRENDERGAST: Composer & Sound Designer; ERIKA CHONG SHUCH: Choreographer; ALISON BOMBER: Voice & Text Coach; JACK DOULIN: Casting Director; JONATHAN KALB: Dramaturg; U. JONATHAN TOPPO: Fight Director; ANDREW DIAZ: Properties Supervisor; SHANE SCHNETZLER: Stage Manager

 

With superb acoustics and less than 300 seats, the Scripps Mainstage at Polonsky Shakespeare Center is one of New York’s finest, intimate homes for modern classical theatre. Hear, see, and feel Shakespeare’s urgent political thriller blaze with life. An early incarnation of Ms. Cooper’s staging electrified audiences at Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) in 2017.
Now in 2019 for TFANA, in her Off-Broadway debut, Ms. Cooper re-imagines Julius Caesar.
When Julius Caesar conquers Gaul and expands Rome’s domain to Britain, the Senate, fearful of Caesar’s power, demands he give up his forces and return to Rome. But Caesar illegally marches his army across the Rubicon into Roman territory and civil war erupts. Caesar is victorious and the citizens offer him a crown which would make Caesar king with unrivaled political power for life. Cassius persuades Brutus, one of Caesar’s closest friends, to join a group of Conspirators and on the Ides of March, they assassinate Caesar, crying “Liberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!”
Shakespeare presents multiple perspectives on whether the Conspirators were patriotic defenders or criminals. Rather than saving the Republic, the assassination plunges Rome into another civil war. Mark Antony joins forces with Octavius Caesar and Lepidus, and conquers the Conspirators. The Roman Republic is replaced by the Roman Empire and power is consolidated under Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar, and Lepidus.
Shakespeare’s play is named The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. But who is the tragic character? Caesar, Brutus or, perhaps, the Republic of Rome?

With mesmerizing energy, Shana Cooper’s production explores what happens when violence is used to govern, and theatricalizes a mythic cycle that combines the political, psychological, and phantasmagorical… a cycle that has happened before and will happen again. Initially, the violence is rhetorical, but it then becomes a disease, a contagion, and a conflagration destroying what is loved the most.

Read a profile on director Shana Cooper on TDF Stages.

TFANA TALKS

Deepen your experience of Julius Caesar with free post-show conversations with artists and scholars following these performances.
All talks will follow 2:00pm matinee performances unless otherwise stated.


Saturday, April 6

Actors Matthew Amendt (Cassius), Brandon J. Dirden (Brutus), and Merritt Janson (Portia) in conversation moderated by Gail Kern Paster, Consulting Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly and former Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library.


Sunday, April 7
Actor and OBIE Award-winning playwright Wallace Shawn in conversation with TFANA Founding Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz.


Saturday, April 13
Actors Jordan Barbour (Mark Antony), Rocco Sisto (Julius Caesar), and Tiffany Rachelle Stewart (Calphurnia) in conversation moderated by Tanya Pollard, Professor of English at Brooklyn College and CUNY Graduate Center.


Saturday, April 20
Tony Award-winning playwright J.T. Rogers (Oslo) in conversation with TFANA Founding Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz.


Sunday, April 21
John Andrews, the President and Founder of The Shakespeare Guild and former Director of Academic Programs the Folger Shakespeare Library, in conversation with TFANA Founding Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz.


Saturday, April 27
Novelist and essayist Maaza Mengiste (Beneath the Lion’s Gaze) in conversation with writer and artist Bianca Vivion Brooks, the host of podcast ASK VIV.


Sunday, April 28
Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro, author of 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare and Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare, in conversation with TFANA Founding Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz.

 

REHEARSAL PHOTOS

CAESAR Acting Company
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This production of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar is sponsored by Deloitte. Additional support is provided by Shakespeare in American Communities, a national initiative sponsored by The National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest, and by endowment funds provided by The Howard Gilman Foundation Fund for Classic Drama.

Cast

MATTHEW AMENDT

Cassius

JORDAN BARBOUR

Mark Antony

MARK BEDARD

Trebonius

BENJAMIN BONENFANT

Octavius Caesar

LIAM CRAIG

Caius Ligarius

TED DEASY

Metellus Cimber

BRANDON J. DIRDEN

Marcus Brutus

EMILY DORSCH

Cicero

MICHELLE HURST

Soothsayer

MERRITT JANSON

Portia

ARMANDO McCLAIN

Cinna

GALEN MOLK

Cinna the Poet

BARRET O’BRIEN

Decius Brutus

JULIAN REMULLA

Lucius

JULIANA SASS

Artemidorus

ROCCO SISTO

Julius Caesar

STEPHEN MICHAEL SPENCER

Caska

TIFFANY RACHELLE STEWART

Calphurnia