Theater News

Ping Chong to Adapt Throne of Blood for Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Ping Chong
(© Stephen Garrett)
Ping Chong
(© Stephen Garrett)

Award-winning writer/director Ping Chong will adapt and direct Akira Kurosawa’s 1957 film Throne of Blood for the stage, as part of Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s 2010 season. The film is, itself, an adaptation of Shakespeare’s Macbeth, set in Feudal Japan. This OSF commission will run July 21-October 23, with an opening on July 24.

Another highlight of the season will be the world premiere of American Night (June 29-October 24), by Culture Clash, which is the first of OSF’s commissions for its previously announced American Revolutions: The United States History Cycle. The play weaves multiple narratives about ordinary people who, in extraordinarily difficult circumstances, resist the status quo and sacrifice their well-being for the benefit of others. Jo Bonney will direct.

The season will also include four Shakespeare works: The Merchant of Venice (June 3-October 10), directed by OSF artistic director Bill Rauch; Twelfth Night (June 1-October 8); Henry IV, Part One (June 3-October 10), directed by Penny Metropulos; and Hamlet (February 19-October 24), also directed by Rauch.

Additional shows will include an adaptation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (February 21-October 24), directed by Libby Appel; Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (February 20-July 4), directed by Christopher Liam Moore; the Jerry Bock-Sheldon Harnick-Joe Masteroff musical She Loves Me (April 14-October 23), directed by Rebecca Bayla Taichman; Lisa Kron’s Well (February 25-June 18), directed by James Edmondson; and Lynn Nottage’s Ruined (March 24-October 24).

For more information, visit www.osfashland.org.