Are you ready to witness a transportive story of power, betrayal, and redemption? Smoking Mirror Theatre Company proudly presents its rendition of Shakespeare’s timeless classic, The Tempest. The play will run from August 30 to September 15 in the Jeffrey and Paula Gural Theatre at the A.R.T/New York Theatre at 502 West 53rd Street.
Set on an island in the Mediterranean Sea, the mysterious magician Prospera lives with her young, compassionate daughter, Miranda. By conjuring a fierce storm, Prospera brings a shipwreck to shore whose crew holds secrets of a devastating past betrayal and the promise of new love.
This magical new production reinvents the Bard’s traditional tale by transforming Prospero, the magician, and Alonso, King of Naples, into female characters. There have been female Prosperos before, but never quite like this. In this story, Prospera has a formidable enemy in the Queen of Naples, while her daughter Miranda is portrayed as an innately powerful young woman, a shrinking violet no more.
The production’s non-traditional casting aims to challenge and expand the audience’s understanding of the play’s main characters. By making both Prospero and Alonso female, Director John Gordon sheds new light on the play’s recurring themes of sibling rivalry, trust, and the emotional fallout of betrayal. The casting also echoes the modern reality of an increasingly female-led world.
Gordon hopes that his unconventional casting choice will encourage the audience to reflect on “the mirroring in betrayal by a brother upon his sister, and the shifting of the traditionally male-dominated power dynamics to include female perspectives.” Gordon’s interpretation also uniquely highlights the theme of memory in The Tempest, as its major characters are repeatedly confronted by their past to forge a new future.
Long-time Shakespearean actor Nancy Rich will play the lead role of Prospera. Her impressive theater credits include Princess Kosmonopolis in Tennessee Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth, Queen Margaret and Elizabeth in Richard III, the Nurse in Euripides’ Medea, Ranevskaya in Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard, The Nurse in Romeo & Juliet, Gertrude in Hamlet, Arkadina in The Seagull, Olga in Three Sisters, Mme. Voynitsakaya in Uncle Vanya, Portia in Julius Caesar and Hecate in Macbeth.
Joining her in the cast are Cam Gray (Miranda), Bellamy Woodside Ridinger (Ariel), Coleman Shu-Tung (Caliban), Jason Schlaman (Ferdinand), Alice Marks (Alonsa, Queen of Naples), Martin Challinor (Antonio), Meg Gwyn (Sebastian, Spirit), Tony Savage Thorn (Gonzalo), Brian Mendoza (Adrian, Boatswain), Justin Bennett (Trinculo), Ronan Schwarz (Stephano) and Mira Singer (Spirit, Mariner).
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The Smoking Mirror Theatre Company is thrilled to be staging another Shakespeare production after a successful run of Shakespeare’s Prisons: Tales of Conscience and Illusion at Theaterlab NYC last year. The group is dedicated to producing Shakespeare’s plays in the NYC area, all while promoting deep textual understanding, emotional truth, and physical embodiment in acting.
Hosts of the production are the Alliance of Resident Theatres/New York, which provides state-of-the-art, accessible performance venues as well as high-quality technical equipment at subsidized rates. This helps the city’s small and emerging theater companies continue to thrive and produce fantastic theater for all.
The Tempest will show nightly on Wednesdays through Saturdays at 7:30 p.m. and on Sundays at 2:30 p.m. Tickets are $35 for general admission and $18 for students or seniors with a discount code. To reserve your tickets, call 973-668-0760 or visit The Smoking Mirror Theatre Company’s Eventbrite page. Don’t miss out on this extraordinary theatrical experience!
