Theatre for a New Audience anounces its 30th Anniversary Season

For its 30th anniversary season, Theatre for a New Audience presents three productions in which love, lust and longing distract and consume. A rock star is obsessed with an accident victim he barely knew, a puritanical head of state is unhinged by a beautiful petitioner, and two lovers trace a magnificent, life-embracing arc of jealousy, guilt, adoration and anguish in Shakespeare's sonnets.

The directors for the new season are Robert Woodruff, Arin Arbus and Peter Brook, all of whom staged productions for Theatre for a New Audience's 29th season. Each production will be staged at The Duke on 42nd Street.

The season will open with Robert Woodruff directing the New York premiere of Orpheus X, (2007 Pulitzer Finalist), a music-theatre piece with original music and text by Rinde Eckert, composer, author, actor and musician and video by Denise Marika. It draws from several sources, including the Sixth Century Greek poet Ibyous and the Roman poets Virgil and Ovid.

Eckert and Woodruff take this ancient myth and reinvent it for our time: Orpheus is a rock star who plays electric guitar, not the lyre. In Eckert's version Orpheus is mourning the death of a poet named Eurydice who was killed by a cab in which Orpheus was riding.

The cast consists of Rinde Eckert, Suzan Hanson and John Kelly and a live band of piano, guitar, viola, percussion and bass.

Orpheus X runs from 2- 20 Dec 2009. Originally commissioned by American Repertory Theater where it opened Mar 2006, this will be a Theatre for a New Audience production.

Arin Arbus, who made her Off-Broadway directing debut last year with she helmed 'Othello,' will stage William Shakespeare's dark comedy, Measure for Measure.

When the Duke of Vienna departs on a mysterious trip, he delegates power to Angelo, a man of seemingly spotless reputation. Angelo clamps down on the city's vice by enforcing an antiquated law punishing fornication with death. He makes an example of young Claudio for impregnating his beloved fiance. But when Claudio's beautiful sister Isabella who is about to take holy vows, pleads with Angelo for Claudio's life, Angelo demands that in return for mercy, Isabella sleep with him.

Measure for Measure runs 6 Feb - 14 Mar 2010.

The final production will be the New York premiere of C.I.C.T. / Th��tre des Bouffes du Nord production of Love Is My Sin, the sonnets of William Shakespeare adapted by Peter Brook and performed by two of Mr. Brook's collaborators, his wife, Natasha Parry and Bruce Myers. Franck Krawczyk on keyboard and accordion plays the music of Louis Couperin (1626-1661). Lighting design by Philippe Vialatte. Artistic collaboration, Marie H�l ne Estienne.

Last season, Theatre for a New Audience co-presented 'The Grand Inquisitor' directed by Peter Brook and performed by Bruce Myers in the title role.

Love Is My Sin premiered in Paris at Bouffes du Nord April, 2009. It features twenty nine sonnets chosen by Peter Brook.

Brook says of the work, "Apart from his masterpieces, Shakespeare also wrote uncommonly beautiful sonnets. To choose between 154 sonnets, I needed to find a dramatic continuity and was guided by the hidden tensions that arise in a relationship between two people. Love Is My Sin allows us to penetrate into Shakespeare's own, most secret life. It is his private diary, in which we find his intimate questions, his jealousy, his passions, his guilt, his despair. Above all, he searches to discover for himself the deep meaning of being attracted by a man or by a woman, even by the act of writing itself. This is neither a play nor a poetry recital. It catches the actors in true human relationships. Then, at the very end, they become speakers for Shakespeare himself who wrote prophetically that his verse is stronger than time and will last forever."

Love Is My Sin runs from 27 Mar - 17 Apr 2010.