Tag Archives: Theatre for a New Audience

Ortiz Earns Obie Award for His “The Woodsman” Puppet Designs

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James Ortiz is a real puppet master…

James Ortiz

The Latino actor, director, writer and puppet designer has received an award at the 61st annual Obie Awards, established by the Village Voice to acknowledge achievement in off-Broadway theater.

The Woodsman

Ortiz picked up the award for his puppet designs for New World Stages’ production of The Woodsman, the one-of-a-kind show Ortiz created that tells the tale of the Tin Man, the woman he loved, and the witch that would stop at nothing to keep them apart.

It’s Strangemen and Co.’s critically acclaimed take on one of America’s original fairy tales, the Wizard of Oz.

The Woodsman

The Village Voice now runs the Obies with the American Theatre Wing, which also co-presents the Tony Awards (with the Broadway League).

The ceremony was held Monday evening at Webster Hall and hosted by Lea DeLaria.

Ortiz serves as the co-artistic director of Strangemen & Co. His design/directorial credits include The Tempest (DC Shakespeare), SeaWife (Naked Angels), Mercury Fur (The New Group), King Lear (Delacorte Theater in Central Park), Ludic Proxy (Soho Rep), King Lear (Theatre for a New Audience), A Midsummer Night’s Dream (New Place Players), Miss Lilly Gets Boned (Studio 42), My Base and Scurvy Heart (Studio 42) and An Intimate Evening with Typhoid Mary (Glass Bandits).

Isaac to Star in Theatre for a New Audience’s Production of “Hamlet”

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Oscar Isaac is about to Ham(let) it up…

The 37-year-old Guatemalan and Cuban American actor will play William Shakespeare’s melancholy Prince of Denmark in a new production of Hamlet for the Brooklyn-based company Theatre for a New Audience. It’s more than a year off, but the play, to be staged by Sam Gold, will certainly be a big draw for artistic director Jeffrey Horowitz’s celebrated and increasingly ambitious company, which presents in its sleek new headquarters, the Polonsky Shakespeare Center.

Oscar Isaac

Hamlet is slated to begin previews June 4, 2017 for an opening June 22 and run through July 30. The pairing of star (Star Wars: The Force Awakens; A Most Violent Year; Inside Llewyn Davis) director (Tony Award winner for staging the Tony Winning best musical Fun Home) should continue TFNA’s upward profile — and demonstrate that the prospect of a Tony nomination isn’t the only reason marquee actors are drawn to the stage or even to Brooklyn

Isaac and Gold previously worked together on Zoe Kazan’s We Live Here, in 2011.

Hamlet is their first Shakespeare collaboration and their first production with TFNA.

“Oscar is celebrated for the honesty, authenticity, and intensity of his performances,” Horowitz said in announcing the production Sunday afternoon, “and Hamlet marks his long-desired return to theater after an impressive series of starring film and television roles. Sam is renowned for the transparent subtlety and nuance of the theatrical worlds he creates. Together [they] will explore the ‘undiscovered country’ of Hamlet’s world which begins, of course, with the first words of the play, ‘Who’s there?’”

Casting and other creative decisions will be announced later.