Name: The Head of Richard
Start: 2023-01-02T20:30:00-05:00
End: 2023-01-02T22:00:00-05:00
Location: Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts

The Head of Richard

Every October, Shakespeare in Paradise exposes locals and visitors to the best in World, Caribbean, African, and African American theatre.Founded in 2009, Shakespeare in Paradise celebrates theatre in all its forms, not just Shakespeare!

Shakespeare in Paradise

On the eve of battle, Richard III faces his mother, his life of violence, his shame and himself.
A 2-actor, 50-min adaptation.

Dundas Centre for the Performing Arts

The Head of Richard Presented by DE-CRUITWritten by Stephan Wolfert &amp; Dawn SternDirection by Jason O’ConnellChoreography by Roman BacaOn the eve of battle, Richard III faces his mother, his life of violence, his shame and himself.The HEAD of RICHARD is a two-actor, 50-minute adaptation using only Shakespeare’s text from Richard III. This retelling of Richard III from a military veteran’s perspective looks at the havoc created by emotional deformity from chronic abuse and humiliation. On the eve of battle, Richard faces his mother, his life of violence, his shame, and himself.The Head of Richard was created by Army veteran Stephan Wolfert awarded the 2019 Max Gabriel Award from National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI) presented in grateful recognition of Wolfert’s outstanding ability to artistically and powerfully share his story in order to broaden the understanding of PTSD and other mental health challenges faced by our veterans.CONTENT WARNING: The Head of Richard includes content that may be upsetting for some audience members, including enactments of violence: verbal abuse, murder, self-harm, and war.DIRECTOR&#x27;S BIO: Jason O’Connell is an actor, director, and playwright. His directing credits include productions at Syracuse Stage, Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Playhouse on Park, and Texas Shakespeare Festival. He has directed small-cast, all-female adaptations of Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream in New York, as well as the World Premiere of his own adaptation of Edmond Rostand’s Cyrano (co-written with Brenda Withers) at Amphibian Stage in Texas. In addition to Cyrano (in which Jason later played the title role in a co-production between Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival and Two River Theater Company), Jason is also the writer of the solo shows The Dork Knight and Fat and Scant of Breath, or Stabbing at Hamlet. As an actor, Jason’s Off-Broadway credits include Judgment Day at Park Avenue Armory, Pride and Prejudice at Primary Stages, Happy Birthday, Wanda June for Wheelhouse Theater, Sense and Sensibility and The Seagull for Bedlam, A Midsummer Night’s Dream at The Pearl, and The Saintliness of Margery Kempe at The Duke on 42nd St. Jason won the 2014 New York Innovative Theatre award for Outstanding Lead Actor for his work as the title character in Phoenix Theatre Ensemble’s Don Juan in Hell (also cited as one of the year’s best performances by The Wall Street Journal).DIRECTOR&#x27;S NOTES: “The line of Shakespeare that first comes to my mind whenever I think of Richard III is, curiously enough, not a line from Richard III… It’s from Twelfth Night,” reflects director, Jason O’Connell. “In nature, there’s no blemish but the mind; None can be called deformed but the unkind.” I’ve always thought of the character primarily in terms of his misshapen soul, rather than referencing the body. The evil within him is his deficiency. But where does that evil – that unkindness – come from? Richard’s malignancy is as much the product of the trauma he has suffered as it is the root of the trauma he inflicts. The Head of Richard offers a glimpse at the webbing of a madman’s mind and the spiders that nest there, and argues an addendum to Shakespeare’s sentiments: a spiritual deformity is the province of both the unkind and the unloved.”

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The Head of Richard

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