Cymbeline
 

UPDATE: Fiasco Theater’s Cymbeline has been extended! The production will continue its smashing engagement at the Barrow Street Theatre for another two weeks through January 15!

From the award-winning producers of Our Town, August: Osage County, Othello and last season’s The Merchant of Venice Theatre for a New Audience – Jeffrey Horowitz, Artistic Director, Scott Morfee, Jean Doumanian & Tom Wirtshafter Present the Return Engagement of Fiasco Theater’s Widely Acclaimed

CYMBELINE

By William Shakespeare
Directed by Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld

Featuring Jessie Austrian, Noah Brody, Paul L. Coffey, Andy Grotelueschen, Ben Steinfeld, and Emily Young

Set Design: Jean-Guy Lecat
Costume Design: Whitney Locher
Light Design: Tim Cryan
Fabulous Trunk: Jacques Roy
Prop Design: Caite Hevner
Fight Director: Noah Brody
Music Director: Ben Steinfeld
Vocal Coach: Cicely Berry
Fight Consultant: J. Allen Suddeth
Casting Director: Deborah Brown Casting
Production Stage Manager: Christina Lowe
Assistant Stage Manager: Miriam Hyfler
Understudies: Ellen Adair & Patrick Mulryan
Production Supervisor: Production Core
Production Manager: Joshua Scherr
Assistant Set Designer: Pierre LeBon
Assistant Light Designer: Lucrecia Briceno
Technical Director: Kurtis Rivers
Master Electrician: John Anselmo
Assistant Director: Michael Perlman
Press Representative: The Bruce Cohen Group, LTD.
General Management: Michael Page & Amy Dalba
General Manager, Theatre for a New Audience: Theresa Von Klug
Artwork: Frank “Fraver” Verlizzo
Graphic Design: Patrick Flood
Advertising: Ann Murphy
Marketing: Hudson Media Services, LLC
Marketing Intern: Danya Taymor
Two sold-out weeks last January for Fiasco Theater’s production of CYMBELINE wasn’t nearly long enough to satisfy the demands of a theatre-going public hungry for, as Ben Brantley of the New York Times wrote, “The comedy, poignancy and unlikely magic of CYMBELINE”.  The magic and comedy and music of what New York Magazine’s Scott Brown called this “small masterpiece” will be back when six actors and a fabulous trunk take on the 14 roles in one of William Shakespeare’s wild and witty romances.  In this lightning-paced production, a plain white cloth becomes a sail, a bed sheet, and a toga and a “fabulous” trunk becomes a bed, a throne and a cave. The transformations are magical and playful and true to the play, deepening its themes of illusion, deception and belief.
What the critics are saying:

“The Fiasco Company brings joyful music, playful inventiveness and just an air-kiss of irony to Shakespeare’s mock-epic. In just under two hours, they remind us what theater, at its simplest and most powerful, is really for: the alchemical thrill of watching an entire world conjured into being out of sheer wit and will. A small masterpiece.”

— Scott Brown, New York Magazine

“I have never seen a Cymbeline as easy to follow as this one. For once, the play itself really is the thing. This plucky troupe credibly portrays incredible feats of derring-do; brings elaborate battle scenes to life, and organically blends music into the action. The lucid, modest performances let the comedy, poignancy and unlikely magic of Cymbeline surface gently and naturally.”

— Ben Brantley, New York Times

“Sincere with the dialogue and merry of heart, a young ensemble of actors adeptly and joyously handles acting, playing musical instruments and singing harmoniously. A genuinely lighthearted, playful production.”

— Jennifer Farrar, Associated Press

4 STARS!
“This scrappy and likable little ensemble’s bare-bones Cymbeline is fresh, frisky, jammed with playful theatricality and music to match. Besides being talented actors, they’re all terrific musicians who serve up pretty a cappella chorals, guitar-strumming ballads and a foot-stompin’ bluegrass ditty, washboard included.”

— Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News

“Fiasco Theater’s charming production makes crystal-clear the endlessly convoluted plot developments of the Bard’s late-period romance. The youthful performers have a winning playfulness.”

— Frank Scheck, New York Post

“Co-directors Steinfeld and Brody exploit poor-theater to often-hilarious effect in this high-spirited show. The company’s palpable, easy delight is a surging tide to raise all boats.”

— Helen Shaw, Timeout NY

“A frolicsome form of poor theater on a bare stage, Fiasco Theater gleefully undertake poisoning, beheading, cross-dressing and betrayal. The excitement is infectious!”

— Alex Soloski, The Village Voice

“Plucky and perky. It is a bright feather in the cap of Fiasco Theater that so much fun abounds in this crazy-quilt of an opus. The change-character-on-the-spot conceit inserts bountiful laughs.”

— David Finkle, Theatremania

production photos by Gerry Goodstein