The one-night Fortinbras reading is part of Red Bull's Revelation Readings series, which continues to Oct. 18. The series explores "contemporary language plays as well as neglected Jacobean works."
Jesse Berger is Red Bull's artistic director. The company staged a full production of Shakespeare's Pericles in 2003.
Fortinbras gets the curtain line at the end of Hamlet, when he arrives with his army in Denmark and finds the royal family dead in the palace.
"Written after the first Gulf War, this uproarious look at what happens after Hamlet is a timely satire on power, politics, and war," according to Red Bull. Blessing is the author of A Walk in the Woods, Eleemosynary, Thief River and more.
In addition to Rudd (TV's "Friends," Off-Broadway's The Shape of Things, Broadway's The Last Night of Ballyhoo), the cast also includes Dallas Roberts (Nocturne, Burn This) and Daniel Breaker (Pericles, Fabulation). The Revelation Readings series is presented at The Culture Project at 45 Bleecker Street. All readings are free, except the Fortinbras benefit. For those tickets, call (212) 352-3101.
A reception and silent auction will begin at 6 PM. Admission to this special benefit is $55.
For tickets to all other readings, write Revelations@redbulltheatercom or call (212) 414-5168. For more information, visit www.redbulltheater.com.
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The Revelation Readings series in fall 2004 will also include:
On the schedule for Red Bull is the rarely performed Jacobean masterpiece, The Revenger’s Tragedy, scheduled to open in January 2005 at The Culture Project.
The Revenger's Tragedy was recently read by Red Bull Theater to a standing room only crowd, with a cast that featured Obie Award-winning actor Ty Jones (The Blacks), Howard Overshown (Yellowman), and Michael Stuhlbarg (The Persians). Written just a few years after Hamlet, The Revenger's Tragedy is "a pot-boiling pastiche of the plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries – a provocative cross between Measure for Measure and Titus Andronicus."
