The Two Gentlemen of Verona this Month. Performed by Brave Spirits Theatre: DC’s Newest Shakespeare Company!

This is awesome, there’s a new  theatre company with an obvious passion for Shakespeare in Washington DC called “Brave Spirits Theatre”. They’ll be starting out their first season with The Two Gentlemen of Verona on June 16 – 18, 23 – 25.

There’s a couple of reasons why I am excited to see the Brave Spirits Theatre company (And with any luck, their first show). To start with, the ecstatic energy that comes with the start of any new venture is generally reflected in the performances, which gets poured out into the audience. And the second reason is that, this will not be the first time I’ve had a chance to  see some of the actors in this company. I have had the pleasure to see Jonathan Lee Taylor  in  The Merchant of Venice, Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing and Hamlet. And just a couple of months ago I was lucky enough to see Ian Blackwell Rogers play Leontes in The Winter’s Tale. I had a chance to see Ian at another Shakespeare function last April in Baltimore where he left an indelible impression on my wife by reciting several Shakespeare sonnets to her. So in the vernacular of my 1970’s/1980’s Southern Maryland upbringing I just want to say to Ian, “Thanks Dude – You Rock”.

Yet’ I digress…

Here’s some more information about “Brave Spirits Theatre” from their website: http://www.bravespiritstheatre.com/about.html

“Brave Spirits Theatre, founded in 2011, is a professional theatre company dedicated to bringing fresh, energetic productions of the works of William Shakespeare and other early modern playwrights to the Washington, D.C. region. We have a triangular focus: text, actor, and audience.

Text: We are unabashedly obsessed with language. We believe the text itself holds all the clues we need to perform an early modern play with truth and vitality. We examine imagery, verse, rhetorical devices, and embedded stage directions. Shakespeare and his contemporaries wrote beautiful poetry, but they also wrote bawdy, gritty, realistic prose and we embrace both with equal relish. In short, we trust the text and it is the basis of our work.

Actor: We are a company that believes the actor is at the center of the artistic process. We seek out artists who are willing to take creative risks, who are bold and courageous, who are ensemble-driven, and who are professionally-minded in their commitment to the art. The actor is the vessel through which the text comes to life, and as such the actor must be willing to bare his or her soul onstage, and must be intellectually, emotionally, physically, and spiritually adept.

Audience: We feel that the audience is the final ingredient needed to bring the play to life. In keeping with the early modern aesthetic, there is no fourth wall, and we engage the audience as a fellow actor, an active participant in the world of the play. Actors may turn the audience into a raucous mob, their confidants, or the butt of a joke. By playing with the audience rather than to them, we make these plays exciting, accessible, and relevant.

For more information, you can check them out at there website by going here: http://www.bravespiritstheatre.com/

Brave Spirits Theatre will be performing

The Two Gentleman of Verona

June 16 – 18, 23 – 25 The
Thursday, Friday, Saturday at 8pm
Saturday matinee at 2pm

tickets only $10

Now on sale at Brownpapertickets.com

performing at:

The Fridge DC
REAR ALLEY
516 8th Street, SE
Washington, DC 20003