Previews Begin October 19; Opens November 2

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1 The Bruce Cohen Group, Ltd For Immediate Release, Please Contact: Bruce Cohen Single Tickets Go On Sale September 13 For Theatre for a New Audience's A Midsummer Night's Dream At its newly named building Polonsky Shakespeare Center Julie Taymor Directs Elliot Goldenthal Composes Original Music Previews Begin October 19; Opens November 2 BROOKLYN -- Single tickets go on sale September 13 for Theatre for a New Audience s inaugural production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by multiple Tony Award-winner Julie Taymor with original music composed by Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning Elliot Goldenthal, at the Theatre s newly-named building, Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place between Lafayette Avenue and Fulton Street, Brooklyn. A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare features a cast of 36 led by Tina Benko as Titania, Max Casella as Bottom, David Harewood as Oberon and Kathryn Hunter as Puck. Previews begin previews October 19, for an opening November 2. Founding Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz explained, Julie and Elliot are innovative, adventurous artists. We first worked together in 1984 on a 60-minute version of A Midsummer Night s Dream for Theatre for a New Audience presented at the Public Theater. Twenty-nine years later, it s thrilling they are directing and composing our first full production of A Midsummer Night's Dream, the inaugural presentation in our first permanent home. Theatre for a New Audience just named its building Polonsky Shakespeare Center in recognition of a $10 million gift from the Polonsky Foundation.

2 Julie Taymor is internationally recognized for her bold and original creations. For this inaugural production, she stages Shakespeare s joyous comedy about love and its complications in the mortal and spirit worlds incorporating a fantasia of light and shadow. A Midsummer Night s Dream is the fifth production Ms. Taymor has directed for Theatre for a New Audience. Previously with the company, she staged Shakespeare s The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew, and Titus Andronicus, and Carol Gozzi s The Green Bird. A Midsummer Night s Dream will feature original music by Elliot Goldenthal, who creates works for orchestra, theatre, opera, ballet and film. Mr. Goldenthal was named one of the two finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in music for his original two-act opera Grendel, which was directed by Ms. Taymor. After 34 years of being itinerant, Theatre for a New Audience's Polonsky Shakespeare Center is also its first permanent home. Built by The City of New York in partnership with Theatre for a New Audience, located in the Downtown Brooklyn Cultural District; and designed by Hugh Hardy and H 3 Hardy Collaboration Architecture with theatre consultants Theatre Projects, Jean-Guy Lecat and Akustiks, it includes the Samuel H. Scripps Mainstage (299 seats) - - the first stage built for Shakespeare and classical drama in New York City since the Vivian Beaumont in and the Theodore C. Rogers Studio (50 seats). Sets for A Midsummer Night s Dream are by Es Devlin, costumes are by Constance Hoffman, lights by Don Holder, sound by Matt Tierney, projections by Sven Ortel, and aerial design and flights by Aerialistic. Andrew Wade is the voice director and Brian Brooks is choreographing the dances. Jonathan Mastro is the music director. In addition to Tina Benko as Titania, Max Casella as Bottom, David Harewood as Oberon and Kathryn Hunter as Puck, the cast of 36 includes Zach Appelman, Brendan Averett, Roger Clark, Lilly Englert, Joe Grifasi, Jake Horowitz, Zachary Infante, Robert Langdon Lloyd, Mandi Masden, Jacob Ming-Trent, Okwui Okpokwasili, and William Youmans.

3 The fairies are interpreted as elemental forces of nature -- Rude Elementals: Olivia Bak, Marcus Bellamy, Ciaran Bowling, Jarrett Austin Brown, Jon Viktor Corpuz, Christina Dimanche, Jake L. Faragalli, Jaryd Farcon, Reimi Kaneko, Sophie Lillis, Johnny Marx, Isaiah Register, Briana Robinson, Willa Scolari, Sophie Shapiro, Alex Shimizu, Emmet Smith, Madison Smith, Azalea Twining, and Cassidy vanvonno. Theatre for a New Audience s season continues with King Lear by William Shakespeare, directed by Arin Arbus and featuring Michael Pennington. King Lear begins previews March 14 for a run through May 4. The third show of the season is The Killer by Eugène Ionesco, directed by Darko Tresnjak with a new translation by Michael Feingold and featuring Michael Shannon. The Killer begins previews May 17 for a run through June 2.9 Box Office Subscriptions for Theatre for a New Audience s inaugural season are $147 for a 3-play inaugural season package and $294 for a 6-play, two-season package, and are available by calling (212) , ext. 10. Flex Passes are also available for $208 and include four tickets to be used in any combination over the inaugural season. For more information or to subscribe online, please visit Single tickets start at $75. Tickets may be purchased online at or by phone at A Midsummer Night s Dream runs October 19 through January 12 and performs Tuesday through Sunday evenings at 7:30pm with regular matinees Saturday and Sunday at 2:00pm. Additional matinee performances are Tuesday, December 24 at 2:00pm; Wednesdays November 27 and January 1 at 2:00pm. Additional Evening Performances are Monday, December 23 at 7:30pm. There are no 7:30pm evening performances Sundays October 20 and 27, December 8, 15 and 22 and January 5. There are also no performances Thursday, November 28; Tuesdays, December 17 and 24; and Wednesdays, December 18 and 25.

4 New Deal tickets for ages 30 and under or full-time students of any age are priced at $20 each and can be purchased when single tickets go on sale by using code NEWDEAL. Valid ID showing proof of age or student status must be presented for each ticket bought. This production is sponsored by American Express, with additional support provided by WorldStage Inc. It is part of Shakespeare for a New Generation, a national program of the National Endowment for the Arts in cooperation with Arts Midwest. Theatre for a New Audience programs are supported, in part, by public funding provided by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. Julie Taymor Julie Taymor is an Academy Award-nominated and Tony Award-winning director whose productions range from musicals and Shakespeare plays to classical operas and films. Ms. Taymor has been hailed as one of the most imaginative and provocative directors and designers working in the arts today. Ms. Taymor s stage productions of Shakespeare s plays for Theatre for a New Audience include The Tempest (1986 Off-Broadway and 1987 at American Shakespeare Theatre; 1994: excerpts broadcast on PBS Behind the Scenes); The Taming of the Shrew, (1988 Off-Broadway and North Shore Music Theatre) and Titus Andronicus (1994, Off Broadway). In 2000, Ms. Taymor directed Carlo Gozzi s The Green Bird on Broadway which was first produced in 1996 by Theatre for a New Audience at The New Victory Theater and subsequently toured to the La Jolla Playhouse. In 1998, Ms. Taymor became the first woman to win the Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical, and also won a Tony for Best Costumes, for her landmark production of The Lion King. Celebrating its 16th anniversary this November, The Lion King is the highest-grossing show and fifth longest-running musical in Broadway history. Translated into seven different languages the show has been performed in 15 different countries on five continents. For her latest Broadway production, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark, Ms. Taymor served as director, co-book writer and mask-designer for the rock musical, which has consistently been

5 one of Broadway s top-grossing shows since beginning performances in Her additional theatre work includes her Broadway debut in 1996 with Juan Darién: A Carnival Mass, nominated for five Tony Awards, as well as The Transposed Heads, based on the novella by Thomas Mann, co-produced by the American Musical Theater Festival and Lincoln Center; and Liberty's Taken, an original musical co-created with David Suehsdorf and Elliot Goldenthal. Ms. Taymor's feature film directorial debut, Titus, starred Anthony Hopkins, Jessica Lange and Alan Cumming. In 2002, her biographical film Frida, starring Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina, earned six Academy Award nominations, winning two. The music of the Beatles and the turbulent 1960s served as the backdrop for her next film, Across the Universe, which earned a Golden Globe nomination for Best Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy. Ms. Taymor s most recent film, The Tempest, adapted the William Shakespeare play and featured an all-star cast including Helen Mirren, Ben Whishaw, Djimon Hounsou and Alfred Molina. Beyond the theatre and screen, Ms. Taymor has directed five operas internationally including Oedipus Rex with Jessye Norman, for which she earned the International Classical Music Award for Best Opera Production. A subsequent film version premiered at the Sundance Film Festival and won her an Emmy award. Ms. Taymor also directed Salome, The Flying Dutchman, Die Zauberflöte (which has been in repertory at The Met for seven years), The Magic Flute (the abridged English version of Die Zauberflöte, which inaugurated a new PBS series entitled Great Performances at The Met, and will return to the Metropolitan Opera stage this December) and Elliot Goldenthal's Grendel, which was performed at the Los Angeles Opera and the Lincoln Center Festival, and earned a nomination for the Pulitzer Prize for Music. Ms. Taymor is a 1991 recipient of the MacArthur ("genius") Fellowship. Elliot Goldenthal Composer Elliot Goldenthal creates works for orchestra, theater, opera, ballet and film. He composed original music for all Theatre for a New Audience s stage productions directed by Ms. Taymor: Shakespeare s The Tempest; The Taming of the Shrew and Titus Andronicus and Gozzi s The Green Bird. Juan Darién opened the season at the Vivian Beaumont Theater at Lincoln Center in 1996, winning four Drama Desk Awards and five Tony Award nominations,

6 including Best Musical and Best Score. In 2006, Mr. Goldenthal s original two-act opera Grendel, directed by Ms. Taymor, premiered at the Los Angeles Opera and had its east coast debut as the centerpiece of the Lincoln Center Festival in New York. Mr. Goldenthal was named one of the two finalists for the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in music for his work on Grendel. He was commissioned by the American Ballet Theatre to compose a three-act ballet of Othello, which debuted at the Metropolitan Opera in May 1997 and was choreographed by Lar Lubovitch. In October 2009, the Joffrey Ballet showcased Othello in nine performances in Chicago and revived it again in spring Mr. Goldenthal s large-scale symphonic piece, Fire Water Paper: A Vietnam Oratorio, was commissioned by the Pacific Symphony to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. It was released in 1996 on Sony Classical Records and featured soloist Yo-Yo Ma. It debuted at the Pacific Symphony and was later performed at Carnegie Hall and at The Kennedy Center with Seiji Ozawa conducting the Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 2003, Mr. Goldenthal received an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award for his score to Frida directed by Taymor, having also received an Oscar nomination for the film s original song Burn It Blue with lyrics by Taymor. He previously received Oscar nominations for his music for Neil Jordan s Interview With the Vampire and Michael Collins. Also notable among his more than 30 film scores are Michael Mann s Public Enemies and Heat, Neil Jordan s The Butcher Boy and Ms. Taymor s The Tempest, Across The Universe and Titus. Additionally, Mr. Goldenthal has been nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and three Grammy Awards. Theatre for a New Audience Founded in 1979 by Jeffrey Horowitz, Theatre for a New Audience s mission is to develop and vitalize the performance and study of Shakespeare and classic drama. It produces Shakespeare alongside other major authors such as Harley Granville Barker, Edward Bond, Adrienne Kennedy and Wallace Shawn. It has played off and on Broadway and toured nationally and internationally. In 2001, Theatre for a New Audience became the first American theatre invited to bring a production of Shakespeare to the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC), Stratford-upon-Avon.

7 Cymbeline, directed by Bartlett Sher, premiered at the RSC; in 2007, Theatre for a New Audience was invited to return to the RSC with The Merchant of Venice starring F. Murray Abraham. In 2011, Mr. Abraham reprised his role as Shylock for a national tour. The Theatre's productions have been honored with Tony, Obie, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Lortel and Audelco awards and nominations and reach an audience diverse in age, economics and cultural background. The Theatre created and runs the largest program in the New York City Public Schools to introduce students to Shakespeare, and has served more than 125,000 students since the program began in The Theatre s economically accessible ticket program includes one of the lowest reserved ticket prices for youth in the city: $20 for any show, any time for those 30 years old and under or for full-time students of any age. 09/13/13-30-