Chicago Shakespeare Theater, riding a sold-out inaugural season in its new home on Navy Pier, is steaming into its second year with a prize special attraction added to its mainstage and studio series.
Peter Brook, the legendary English director now based in Paris, is set to bring his new, two-hour production of “Hamlet” here for 18 performances beginning May 9, 2001, following its premiere in Paris and an engagement in New York. Adrian Lester, a London-based actor seen recently in the film “Primary Colors,” is to play the title role. Tickets for this special presentation will be $75, with first choices going to renewing subscribers.
The theater’s regular subscription season starts with “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (Sept. 17 through Nov. 11), directed by Penny Metropulos, an associate artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and ends with “King Lear,” staged by Chicago Shakespeare Theater artistic director Barbara Gaines (Feb. 18-April 29). In between, Nov. 26-Jan. 21, the theater will play host to another starry import, and its first non-Shakespeare play, the Stratford Festival of Canada’s production of the comedy “The School for Scandal,” by Richard Brinsley Sheridan. Brian Bedford, who appeared in the 18th Century comedy at Stratford, will star here and will restage director Richard Monette’s production.
Single-ticket prices for the new season will range from $28 to $45, with subscriptions going for $69 to $114.
Upstairs in the 180-seat studio, the theater will present “The Herbal Bed,” a contemporary drama by English playwright Peter Whelan about Shakespeare’s daughter. Gary Griffin is to direct the play for a run Oct. 15 to Dec. 10.
In the nine weeks this summer when Chicago Shakespeare Theater is not engaged in mainstage subscription productions, it will share its spaces with two outside productions. The Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire’s hit revival of the musical “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” directed by Kenny Ingram, will transfer to Navy Pier for a run June 21 to Aug. 20. In the studio, The Second City will offer its “Hamlet! The Musical” June 22 to Aug. 20.
Thursdays through Sundays at 11 a.m. from June 29 through Aug. 20, Chicago Shakespeare Theater will restage its 75-minute “Short Shakespeare!” version of “Romeo and Juliet.”
For more information: 312-595-5600.
