Purchase Repertory Theatre Performs Two Gentlemen of Verona Dec. 4-12

Purchase Repertory Theatre presents Shakespeare’s romantic comedy Two Gentlemen from Verona December 4-12 at the Purchase College Performing Arts Center.  Tickets are $20 and $15 seniors and non-Purchase students.  Box Office 914-251-6200 or www.artscenter.org.

Two Gentlemen of Verona is considered by some to be Shakespeare’s first play.  This rarely seen romantic comedy has many of the story ideas and all of the fun of his later comedies—a love triangle, friends who become rivals, helpful outlaws, a heroine disguised as a boy who must woo another woman on behalf of the man she loves, and one of the funniest clowns in literature.

The play is a story of two young men Valentine and Proteus who begin as fast friends and set out on a journey to Verona.  It’s a trip filled with rollicking adventures involving women, mistaken identities, dukes, romance, and outlaws.  What follows is a lively evening of fun and adventure.

The play’s director Drew Barr has worked as an actor on and off-Broadway and in television, film and at regional theatres across the country.  He has directed over 50 productions in the past ten years at such venues as Great Lakes Theater Festival, PlayMakers Repertory Company, Portland Stage Company, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Boise Contemporary Theater and Perseverance Theatre Company.  He was Associate Director for Simon McBurney’s Broadway production of Arthur Miller’s All My Sons, as well as Nicholas Hytner’s production of The Sweet Smell of Success, and Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night. He earned his undergraduate degree from Stanford University and his MFA from the Graduate Acting Program at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.  He participated in an experimental program devised by Zelda Fichandler, Paul Weidner and NYU’s Department of Design for Stage and Film, which trained actors in directing.