http://www.shakespearetheatre.org/events/the-taming-of-the-shrew/

“Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth…
But that our soft conditions and our hearts
Should well agree with our external parts?”

Join us for a party like none you’ve seen, heard or tasted. Spilling from the stage into the lobbies and the street, Director Ed Sylvanus Iskandar’s production presents a provocative new approach to The Taming of the Shrew and an utterly unique audience experience. Known for his epic and immersive works, Iskandar uses an all-male cast to examine the fluidity of identity, the authenticity of performance and the economics of love in one of Shakespeare’s most notorious texts.

An emerging artist noted for his innovative interpretation of classic texts, Ed Sylvanus Iskandar joins STC as the first in our path-breaking Clarice Smith Series: New Directors for the Classics. Iskandar creates performances that creatively shift beyond the proscenium, reconnecting audience and artist and returning the theatre to its ancient role as the center of communal life. Audiences not only see the play but are invited to engage in the experience in a more meaningful way. As part of this vision, during the run of Shrew the Sidney Harman Hall will host a local artisan market, a series of workshops led by D.C. artists and performances surrounding the show itself.

Iskandar’s previous projects include the 2014 Drama Desk Award-winner The Mysteries, a collaboration with nearly 50 playwrights that reimagined the stories of The Bible over six hours. The Founding Artistic Director of theatre collective Exit, Pursued by a Bear, Iskandar has also hosted a series of labs and salons in his New York loft, featuring intimate performances and meals cooked by Iskandar himself. Combining theatre with food and community, Exit, Pursued by a Bear has become the talk of the New York theatre scene, utilizing a performance model as old as Homer and as radical as anything on stage today