Unique partnership to mount 'Antony and Cleopatra'

The Associated Press, Monday, November 12, 2012, 9:00am (PST)

NEW YORK (AP) — A trans-Atlantic collaboration between the Royal Shakespeare Company in England, Miami's GableStage and The Public Theater in New York will present a radically fresh version of "Antony and Cleopatra" set on the eve of the Haitian Revolution.

The new staging, which is edited and directed by Tarell Alvin McCraney, will premiere at the Royal Shakespeare Company's Stratford-upon-Avon home in November 2013 before coming to the United States to play at GableStage in January 2014 followed by The Public Theater in late January 2014.

Setting the Shakespeare play in the 1700s allows McCraney, an artistic associate at the Royal Shakespeare Company and an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theater Company, to explore colonialism and racial politics of the New World.