Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead

With an Oscar for Shakespeare in Love and four Tony Awards for Best Play, twice as many as any other author, Sir Tom Stoppard is one of the most acclaimed and riveting playwrights alive today. He burst onto the stage with the contemporary classic Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, an ingenious reworking of Shakespeare centering on the misadventures and musings of two minor characters from Hamlet. It is structured as the inverse of that tragedy: the title characters are the leads, not supporting players, and the melancholy prince himself has only a small part. The duo appear onstage in this play when they are off-stage in Shakespeare’s, apart from a few short scenes in which the dramatic events of both coincide. It features Stoppard’s trademark verbal gymnastics and elaborate games with language, treating it as a confounding system fraught with ambiguity to engage and delight the audience.

ABOUT THE ACTING COMPANY
Celebrating nearly four decades of touring and teaching, multi-award-winning The Acting Company is America’s premier touring repertory theater, founded in 1972 by John Houseman, with world-renowned alumni including Kevin Kline, Patti LuPone, Jesse L. Martin, Rainn Wilson and more. Now this renowned troupe presents a modern masterpiece exploring the ambiguities of existence, as two bewildered pawns in a larger game struggle to understand the drama unfolding around them. Stoppard personally gave The Acting Company the right to perform this revival of his masterpiece, directed by fellow Tony-winner John Rando, the man behind Broadway’s acclaimed Urinetown and A Christmas Story. Running time:  150 min.

ACCOLADES
“The Acting Company endures as the major touring classical theater company in the United States.” The New York Times

ARTIST’S WEBSITE: http://theactingcompany.org/