John Douglas Thompson Set to Begin Red Velvet at Shakespeare & Company

Shakespeare & Company's production of Red Velvet, starring Drama Desk winner John Douglas Thompson, begins performances today. Daniela Varon directs.

Written by Lolita Chakrabarti, Red Velvet is an imagined version of true events in the life of Ira Aldridge, the first African-American actor to play Othello on the English stage, in 1833.

The cast of Red Velvet also features Aaron Bartz, Ben Chase, Kelley Curran, Malcolm Ingram, Christianna Nelson, Ravin Patterson, and Joe Tapper.

Thompson's recent credits include performances in the title role of Christopher Marlowe's Tamburlaine at Theatre for a New Audience's Polonsky Shakespeare Center, in Brooklyn, New York, and in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh, with Nathan Lane, at the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

For tickets and more information, click here.