Shakespeare in the Park announces 2011 line-up

The Public Theater's 2011 Shakespeare in the Park summer season will present two Shakespeare plays in repertory giving audiences eight straight weeks of free Shakespeare.

Under directors Daniel Sullivan and David Esbjornson, the same company of actors will perform in both All's Well That Ends Well and Measure for Measure on rotating nights.

All's Well That Ends Well will be directed by Daniel Sullivan and Measure for Measure will be directed by David Esbjornson. Previews for Shakespeare in the Park 2010 will begin on 6 Jun 2011, and the productions will run through to 31 Jul 2011.

Casting and design teams to be announced at a later date.

"Last year's Shakespeare rep was a thrilling success; the current run of 'The Merchant of Venice' on Broadway is a wonderful reminder of what made last summer so magical," said Public Theater Artistic Director Oskar Eustis. "This year, two of Shakespeare's richest and most rewarding plays make up our season. We are delighted that once again an American Shakespeare company will light up New York's summer."

All's Well That Ends Well is a fairytale for grown-ups. This beguiling fable follows the low-born Helena, one of Shakespeare's most resourceful heroines, as she inventively surmounts obstacle after impossible obstacle in order to win the love of the aristocratic and haughty Count Bertram.

Measure for Measure sweeps from the corridors of national power to the intimate confines of the bedroom, and from the convent's chapel to the executioner's block.

Daniel Sullivan (Director - All's Well That Ends Well) For The Public Theater, Sullivan directed 'The Merchant of Venice' (Broadway/Shakespeare in the Park), 'Twelfth Night,' 'A Midsummer Night's Dream,' 'Stuff Happens' and 'The Merry Wives of Windsor.' Among his Broadway credits are 'Time Stands Still,' 'Accent on Youth,' 'The Homecoming,' 'Prelude to a Kiss,' 'Rabbit Hole,' 'After the Night and the Music,' 'Julius Caesar,' 'Brooklyn Boy,' 'Sight Unseen,' 'I'm Not Rappaport,' 'Morning's at Seven,' 'Proof,' the 2000 production of 'A Moon for the Misbegotten,' 'Ah, Wilderness!,' 'The Sisters Rosensweig,' 'Conversations With My Father' and' The Heidi Chronicles.' Among his off-Broadway credits are 'Intimate Apparel,' 'Far East,' 'Spinning into Butter,' 'Dinner With Friends,' and 'The Substance of Fire.' From 1981 to 1997, he served as Artistic Director of Seattle Repertory Theatre.

David Esbjornson (Director - Measure for Measure) has been the Artistic Director at Seattle Repertory and Classic Stage Company in New York. Highlights include: 'In the Blood' by Suzan-Lori Parks (The Public), the world premiere of 'Purgatorio' by Ariel Dorfman (Seattle Rep), 'The Goat or Who is Sylvia?' (Broadway), 'The Play About the Baby' (The Century), 'The Ride Down Mt. Morgan' and 'Resurrection Blues' by Arthur Miller (Broadway, The Guthrie), the world premiere of 'Angels in America: Millennium Approaches' and the first public presentation of 'Perestroika,' 'Homebody/Kabul' (London), Neal Bell's 'Thérèse Raquin' (CSC; OBIE), 'Tuesdays With Morrie' (Minetta Lane) and Kevin Kling's 'How? How? Why? Why? Why?.'