Thinking Theater NYC

The Tempest Written by William Shakespeare Adapted and directed by Kathy Curtiss Presented by Renaissance Now Theatre & Film at Chain Theatre 312 West 36 Street, Floor 3 & 4, Manhattan, NYC July 2-5, 2025 Carter McEwan, (Mariner), Ethan Freestone (Trinculo), Grace Fillmore (Boatswain), Seth Johnson (Ferdinand). Photo by Jonathan Slaff. The Tempest is one of William Shakespeare's plays most overtly concerned with art and its presentation, making it, in a metatheatrical sense, a particularly apt choice for Renaissance Now Theatre & Film's third season of Shakespearean plays adapted with additions of dialogue in contemporary prose, or "now speak," to highlight themes relevant to contemporary audiences. There exists a long tradition of interpreting sorcerer Prospero's magical "art" as an analogue for theater due to his managing of plot and spectacle throughout The Tempest , and while the "now speak" of this Tempest , courtesy of dire...

Hamlet Speak Adapted and directed by Kathy Curtiss Presented by Renaissance Now Theatre & Film at the Chain Theatre 312 West 36th Street, 4th floor, Manhattan, NYC July 26-29, 2023 Joshua Johnson as Horatio and Austin Zimmerman as Hamlet. Behind: The Players. Photo by Jonathan Slaff. If there is a better way to begin a production of Hamlet than with the music of German band Rammstein, we haven't seen it yet. Rammstein's industrial-infused hard rock plays over projected images and video of war across the ages to begin Hamlet Speak , a new version of Shakespeare's Hamlet , freely adapted and directed by Renaissance Now Theatre & Film's Artistic Director Kathy Curtiss, which includes short monologues in a contemporary voice from Hamlet and Ophelia. Curtiss, who took a similar, and similarly successful, approach to the Scottish play in last year's Macbeth Redux (read our review here ), adds often confessional, sometimes metatheatrical commentary, which, partic...

A Midsummer Night's Dream Written by William Shakespeare Adapted and directed by Laurie Harrop-Purser Presented by  Renaissance Now Theatre & Film at the Chain Theatre 312 West 36th Street, 4th floor, Manhattan, NYC July 26-29, 2023 L to R: Eden Bostrom, Ryan Hopkins (as Puck), Josh Munoz, Preston Ochsenhirt, and Charli Purser. Photo by Jonathan Slaff. Music, poetry, love, recreational drugs: each of these can transport an individual, and Renaissance Now Theatre & Film's new production of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream has them all as it marries the magic of music with the more literal magic of the play's reality-manipulating faeries. This version of the Shakespearean comedy sets itself in Laurel Canyon, California, in the late 1960s/early 1970s, imagining the characters as musicians, roadies, and concertgoers. It is running in rep with Hamlet Speaks , a version of the play that includes new, "audience involved monologues" by Ham...

Macbeth Redux Written by William Shakespeare Adapted and directed by Kathy Curtiss Presented by Renaissance Now Theatre & Film at Theatre Row 410 W 42 St., Manhattan, NYC August 17-20, 2022 Zachary Ballard (Macbeth) and Adam Argyle (Macduff). Photo by Jonathan Slaff. Unlike many recent productions of Shakespeare's Macbeth , Renaissance Now Theatre & Film's Macbeth Redux , adapted and directed by company's Artistic Director Karthy Curtiss, not only preserves but leans into its medieval Scottish setting, including in some wonderfully atmospheric use of Celtic music and song (the hauntingly lovely vocal performance by Keely Conrad, who also plays one of the witches, deserves special mention in that respect). While this backdrop might seem more traditional, Macbeth Redux features no shortage of transformative choices in its vibrant re-envisioning of this oft-adapted play. The most prominent change, in some ways, is the addition of dialogue in contemporary prose. These...