Aquila Theatre Company Brings "Hamlet" to Keene
KEENE, NH, 3/10/06 - Quite possibly the greatest play ever written in the English language, William Shakespeare’s Hamlet will be presented by the Aquila Theatre Company at Keene State College’s Redfern Arts Center on Brickyard Pond. Hamlet will be seen twice - on Saturday, April 1, at 7:30 p.m. and in a special school performance on Monday, April 3, at 10 a.m. This will mark Aquila’s seventh visit to Keene, a company that the New York Times described as, “…a classically trained, modernly hip troupe.”
Aquila’s Brickyard Pond visit is made possible through the financial support of the Keene Sentinel.
Written in 1602, Hamlet is one of the most complete portrayals of the human psyche that exists in Western literature. A compelling tale of familial discord, personal ambition, love and revenge, it has enthralled audiences for 400 years.
“One of the great successes of Aquila’s Hamlet is its accessibility and freshness,” Kristin Church of the Anchorage Daily News wrote. “Actors easily communicate with the audience, beginning with Andrew Schwartz as Hamlet, who envisions the Danish prince as a thoroughly modern adolescent caught up in his parents’ squabbles.”
In a program note, director Robert Richmond says, “Our aim has been to produce this remarkable story in a way that you will find just as compelling as did Shakespeare’s audiences in 1601.”
The Aquila Theatre Company has gained a well-earned international reputation as one of the foremost producers of touring theatre. Aquila presents high quality and inventive productions of classical drama under the artistic leadership of its founder, Peter Meineck, and Richmond, its associate director. Since its inception in 1991, the company has won both critical and academic acclaim for its work worldwide as it changes the perceptions of classical drama by freeing the spirit of the original text and allowing the widest possible audience to enjoy great plays as live, visceral, and above all, entertaining theatre.
Tickets for the performance are available through the Brickyard Pond box office, 603-358-2168, or on the web at www.keene.edu/racbp. Prices are $23 and $20 for the general public, $19 and $16 for seniors and KSC faculty and staff, $12 and $10 for youth 17 and younger, and $5 for KSC students with ID.
For the school performance, tickets are $9 with one complimentary ticket for teachers and chaperones for every ten students. They may be ordered only by calling the box office.
