Red Bull Theater today announced the cast for the online reading of Margaret Cavendish’s The Convent of Pleasure, presented in collaboration with R/18 Collective. This benefit reading to celebrate Women’s History Month is “Pay what you can”. All current Red Bull online programs are FREE. Consider reserving your ticket with a tax-deductible donation. The Convent of Pleasures will air live on Monday, March 14 at 7:30 p.m. EST. Recording of the event will be available until 7:00 p.m. EDT on Friday, March 18.
Kim Weild (American Moor) runs a company that stars Heidi Armbruster (Red Bull Theatre: The Duchess of Malfi; LCT3: Disgraced; Second Stage Theatre: Man from Nebraska; Mint Theatre: Love Goes to Press, The Fifth Column , Susan and God; Atlantic Theatre: Sea of Tranquility; Keen Co: Boy, Tea and Sympathy – Drama League Award nomination); Becca Ayers (Broadway: My Fair Lady, The Addams Family, South Pacific, Les Miserables; 2nd Stage: Dear Evan Hansen, Dogfight); Talley Gale (RBT debut; Hamlet, Richard II, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Macbeth, The Last Match – Old Globe), Cloteal Horne (RBT: The Alchemist); Anthony Michael Martinez (Romeo and Juliet – CSC; Anthony and Cleopatra – Folger Theater); Rami Margron (RBT debut; Angry Young Man – Urban Stages/Guild Hall); Maria-Christina Oliveras (B’way: Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson, Amélie, Machinal; Zorba! – City Center Encores!; Pretty Filthy – The Civilians; Here Lies Love, Romeo and Juliet – Public Theatre); and Josh Tyson (RBT: American Moor; The Three Sisters – Harlem Classic Theater).
First published in 1668, The Convent of Pleasure was written as a hidden drama – a play meant to be read rather than performed. In its 354 year history there have been very few public performances and Red Bull is delighted to offer this opportunity to hear Margaret Cavendish’s play read aloud with the support of R/18 Collective.
After the live reading, there will be a free online Bull Session on Thursday, March 17 at 7:30 p.m. EST: an interactive discussion about the play and its themes with director Kim Weild, Cavendish researcher Dr. Liza Blake, and members of the corporation. The livestream will be on Youtube with chat. Liza Blake is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Toronto with interests in modern literature and science, book history, and text publishing. She has numerous published and forthcoming chapters and articles on Margaret Cavendish, with particular emphasis on Cavendish’s natural philosophy and her post-print interventions in her own books. She edited Poems and Fancies: A Digital Critical Edition by Margaret Cavendish, published in 2019. She is one of three editors of The Complete Works of Margaret Cavendish, under contract with punctum books, and is also co-director of Digital Cavendish .
ABOUT THE GAME
When Lady Happy and her friends decide to ignore societal expectations and consciously choose to avoid men and marriage, they isolate themselves within a free-thinking and joyful community, creating a radical feminist utopia: the Convent of Pleasure. Cavendish’s 17th century play imagines a space created by and for women to live for pleasure without men. But when a mysterious princess comes to join the convent, a “truly courageous princely woman, with a masculine presence”, the paradise of the enclave trembles.
Red Bull Theater’s online readings offer the unique opportunity to hear rarely produced classic plays and all-new plays in conversation with the classics, performed by New York’s finest actors. All of our current online offerings are FREE, but advance reservations are recommended. Tax-deductible donations are encouraged to support Red Bull and invest in the vitality of classic theater for contemporary audiences.
Red Bull Theater wishes to express its gratitude to the performers’ unions: ACTORS’ EQUITY ASSOCIATION, AMERICAN GUILD OF MUSICAL ARTISTS, AMERICAN GUILD OF VARIETY ARTISTS and SAG-AFTRA via Theater Authority, Inc. for their cooperation in enabling artists to appear . on these programs.
Leadership support was provided by ART LAB | Meg Fofonoff & The Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon University.
ABOUT THE R/18 COLLECTIVE
The Collectif R/18 was formed in 2019 to promote professional productions of pieces drawn from the Restoration and 18th century repertoire and to support the search for interpretation linked to these productions. Comprised of academics from the UK, US and Canada, the Collective seeks both to cultivate strong and reciprocal relationships between academics and theater artists and to educate theater audiences about the great wealth of dramatic works of this period. The R/18 Collective believes that these pieces provide urgent information about the formation of the modern world, including the historical development of our current ideas about race, gender, sexuality, nation and capital. The COLLECTIF R/18 is committed to providing the knowledge and dramaturgical services of some of the world’s best researchers in the field to theater companies interested in producing these works as well as securing collaborative international grants to support these productions and research related performance. .
ABOUT RED BULL THEATER
The Red Bull Theater brings rarely seen classic plays to vibrant new life for contemporary audiences, combining respect for tradition with a modern sensibility. Named for the rowdy Jacobean playhouse that performed plays illegally in England during the years of Puritan rule, the Red Bull Theater is New York’s home for vibrant performances of great plays that stand the test. time. With the Jacobean plays of Shakespeare and his contemporaries as its cornerstone, the company also produces new works that dialogue with the classics. A home for artists, scholars and students, Red Bull Theater delights and engages the intellect and imagination of the public, and strives to make its work accessible, diverse and welcoming to all. We value and practice inclusivity, equity and diversity in all our activities, and we are committed to fighting racism. At Red Bull Theater, we are all committed to actively working to help bring about a more perfect union, a racially and socially just America. Red Bull Theater believes in the power of great classic stories and heightened language plays to deepen our understanding of the human condition, in the special ability of live theater to create unique and collective experiences, and in the timeless ability of classical theater to illuminate events. in our time. Variety agreed, hailing Red Bull’s work as: “Proof that classic theater can still be surprising after hundreds of years.”
Since its beginnings in 2003 with a production of Shakespeare’s Pericles starring Daniel Breaker, the Red Bull Theater has served adventurous theatergoers with Off-Broadway productions, Revelation Readings and the annual Short New Play Festival. The company also offers outreach programs, including Shakespeare in Schools, which bring professional actors and teaching artists into public school classrooms; Bull Sessions, free post-play discussions with top academics; and crash courses in classical theater led by seasoned theater professionals. During the pandemic, Red Bull responded quickly to the shutdown, creating several ongoing programs to serve audiences and artists with our mission: RemarkaBULL Podversations, Online Readings, Seminars, and more.
“The classic-shattering Red Bull Theatre,” as Time Out NY called it, has presented 20 Off-Broadway productions and nearly 200 Revelation Readings of rarely seen classics, serving a community of more than 5,000 artists and offering quality artistic programming to an audience of more than 65,000 people. The company’s unique programming has received critical acclaim and garnered Lortel, Drama Desk, Drama League, Callaway, Off Broadway Alliance and OBIE nominations and awards.
For more information on Margaret Cavendish or any of Red Bull Theater’s programs, visit www.redbulltheater.com.
