News: "Hamlet on The Run" Will Have Four Performances, August 22-25, 2024, at the Tank

Mei Melenovsky as Hamlet and Michael Katz. Photo courtesy of FFP
Frank Farrell Productions (FFP) will present a one-hour version of William Shakespeare’s tragic play Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, re-titled Hamlet on the Run, adapted by Frank Farrell, Mitch Webb, and Thomas J. Donohoe II for four performances at 7pm, Thursday through Sunday, August 22 – 25, 2024 at The Tank, 312 W 36th St, New York, NY 10018.“It’s the play we all know but shorter,” said someone after seeing it back in 1982 in Chicago.

“I am enjoying it,” shared the play’s director Thomas J. Donohoe II. “People see Shakespeare as very distant without having done a lot of research. I hope this version shows it can be fun and accessible for the audience. The acting and editing of the script bring clarity to the story. We are also doing it in the round and with very little rehearsal, which is hard on the one hand, but also exciting because that is what it must have been like when these plays were performed originally. This audience is part of the action in every scene.”

In the rehearsal photo link above, Hamlet meets the ghost of his father in Hamlet on the Run. Pictured are (L to R) Mei Melenovsky as Hamlet and Michael Katz as the Ghost of Hamlet's father.

Hamlet on the Run is directed by Thomas J. Donohoe II, the Fight/Intimacy Director is Scarlet Yousif, and costumes and props are by Beatriz Estaban and sound design by Thomas J. Donohoe II. The production’s Stage Manager is Kate Parker Lentz. The cast includes Mei Melenovsky as Hamlet and Lucianus, Maxwell Bank as Claudius, Sophia Carlin as Gertrude, Bradley Nowacek as Horatio and Ophelia, Clarrissa Hernandez as Laertes, Rosencrantz, and Player Queen, David Silberger as Polonius, Gravedigger and Osric, and Michael Katz as Ghost, Guildenstern, Player King, and other roles.

First produced in 1982 in Chicago by the Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Chicago’s first year-round Shakespeare company, this play was part of a production called Shakespeare on the Spot. Richard Christiansen from the Chicago Tribune wrote, “Hamlet of the Run, the best of the trio, has some choice comic moments.”

 Tickets are $15 and available at https://thetanknyc.org.

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