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The Hook (U.S. première)
by Arthur Miller
Adapted for the stage by Ron Hutchinson
Directed by Claire Beckman
The Co-founder, producer and artistic director Claire Beckman talks about this upcoming production being site-specifically presented at The Waterfront Museum Barge in Red Hook.
Can be viewed on Vimeo Here.
Year 2018
A Muslim in the Midst
by Anand Rao at The Actor’s Fund Arts Center
Brave New World Rep MainStage
Director/Producer
Year 2015, 2016 & 2017
by Claire Beckman, adapted from Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard
Directed by Claire Beckman
FREE site-specific staged reading based on “The Cherry Orchard” world premiere on Governors Island.
Set in Virginia 1870, five years after the end of the Civil War and eight years before Jim Crow, is an American retelling of Anton Chekhov's play seen through the lens of Reconstruction.
2015: A Staged Reading on August 16
2016: The World Premiere: 4 performances on September 18 and 25
2017: Returns, by popular demand, for 10 performances at The Commanding Officers House on Governor’s Island: Aug 31, Sept 1, 2, 3, 9, 10, 15, 17, 23, 24
Fringe Festival? Not This Summer. Fringe Spirit? Definitely. - The New York Times
By LAURA COLLINS-HUGHES
SEPTEMBER 5, 2017
In the glory days of Lillian Randolph’s down-on-its-luck plantation, long before war broke out and the family fortune disappeared, Robert E. Lee was a guest in her very house.
“He was always a gentleman,” her frail old servant Furs reminisces, and when he pictures Lee standing in the elegant room, we envision him there as well. “He danced the Virginia reel with Miss Lillian at her debutante ball.”
This is how close the layers of history feel in “The Plantation,” a startlingly visceral immersive adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s “The Cherry Orchard,” set in post-bellum Virginia and performed in the gracefully colonnaded Commanding Officer’s House on Governors Island, with a humor and humanity that would surely please Chekhov. The comedy he insisted was in his play is alive and well in “The Plantation.”
Like Nora Sorena Casey’s “False Stars,” at the Corkscrew Theater Festival, and Justin Kuritzkes’s “—hole” at Jack in Brooklyn — more about both of which shortly — “The Plantation” is an off-the-beaten-path adventure, the kind of theatergoing we’ve had too little of in a summer when the New York International Fringe Festival took a sabbatical.
Click to Read the Full Article Online.
Read Article on Broadway World.
Brave New World Rep to Bring Full Production of THE PLANTATION to Governors Island
Year 2016
By Charles Mee
Three One-Act Plays about The Lives of Artists
Produced by Claire Beckman
Picasso’s Masterpiece, directed by Claire Beckman
May 11, 12, 21, 22, 25 & 26
At Glasshouse Art/Life/Lab
2015
Picasso's Masterpiece
by Charles L. Mee
Directed by Claire Beckman
2013
Street Scene
by Elmer Rice
Directed by Claire Beckman
Street Scene: Named #22 out of 25 Best Stage Plays Shows of 2013 by L Magazine
5th St between 8th Ave and Prospect Park West, Park Slope, Brooklyn
Elmer Rice’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play Street Scene received an environmental staging using a Park Slope apartment building. Brave New World Rep brought the period piece out of the proscenium box, and into our contemporary world.
The play takes place entirely on the front stoop of a New York City apartment building and examines the complex daily lives of its lower income inhabitants (and those of the surrounding neighborhood). Rice captures an evening and a morning in the life of a New York City “village” rife with domestic quarrels, racial and ethnic tensions and economic anxiety
2012
The Long Christmas Dinner
by Thornton Wilder
Directed by Claire Beckman
Home of Lindsay-Abaires (Ditmas Park) and Akwaaba Mansion (Bed-Stuy)
This timeless 45-minute one act spans 90 years of Christmas Dinners with The Bayard Family. Performed twice, back to back by an African American and a Caucasian cast, Brave New World set the performances at the home of Chris and David Lindsay-Abaire in Ditmas Park and the Akwaaba Mansion in Bed-Stuy.
2011
The Long Christmas Dinner
by Thornton Wilder
Directed by Claire Beckman
The Old Stone House, Park Slope
This timeless 45-minute one act spans 90 years of Christmas Dinners with The Bayard Family. Performed four times back to back by an African American and a Caucasian cast, Brave New World initiated their inaugural holiday event at The Old Stone House of Brooklyn. The company served a Christmas meal to the audience before each performance.
Free Shakespeare in Prospect Park
As You Like It
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Claire Beckman
The Oriental Pavilion, Prospect Park
Shakespeare’s pastoral, feminist comedy performed in-the-round at the Oriental Pavillion with live cello and guitar.
The Crucible
by Arthur Miller
Directed by Claire Beckman
The Crucible: A New York Magazine Critics Pick
The Old Stone House, Park Slope
Ten intimate lantern-lit performances staged in The Old Stone House, first constructed in 1699 (seven years after the Salem hangings). The company used the first floor of this unique Brooklyn location for the Parris and Proctor homes and the second floor for the dramatic trial and jail scenes. The play opened with Tituba and the adolescent girls of the village seen through the colonial windows dancing around a fire and pot of soup. New York Magazine Critic’s Pick.
The Tempest
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Claire Beckman
Beach and Boardwalk, Coney Island
Afternoon performances of The Tempest were offered free to the public in the open air of the legendary Boardwalk and beach at Coney Island. Performed on the sand and a tiered platform in the center of an audience seated in 1,500 folding chairs along a 235-foot stretch of Boardwalk near the NY Aquarium. This production was awarded a “proclamation” by Borough President Marty Markowitz.
Video Montage of Brave New World Rep's 2009 summer production of The Tempest
on the Coney Island boardwalk. Click Here.
FREE Summer Garden Readings
The Member of the Wedding
by Carson McCullers
Directed by Claire Beckman
Community and Private gardens throughout Brooklyn
A classic coming of age story that centers around the special relationship between an African American nanny and the adolescent girl she mothered. A nod to BNW’s production of To Kill a Mockingbird, Frankie was played by Taylor Morgan, who played Scout in 2005
2007
Crossing Brooklyn Ferry
by Walt Whitman
Conceived, Adapted and Directed by Claire Beckman
Prospect Park Bandshell, Celebrate Brooklyn!
Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass inspired this multi-media production with dance and live music. Recipient of a 2007 BRIClab Residency.
Video: Excerpts from BNWRep's production of Crossing Brooklyn Ferry, adapted from
Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass. Click here.
2005
To Kill A Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Conceived and Directed by Claire Beckman
Porches and Sidewalks of Westminster Road, Ditmas Park
Arguably BNW’s seminal production, this free-to-the-public, site-specific event had amplified sound and lighting was attended by over 2,000 people. The action took place on the porches and sidewalks of six Victorian homes in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. 750 people were seated in folding chairs in the wide street and the rest stood. The community participated by playing small roles or volunteering. The production received a “citation” by Borough President Marty Markowitz.
“In a quarter-century of theater-going in New York, never have I seen an audience as integrated as the one that took their folding seats on Sunday: black and white, old and very young, with a healthy sprinkling of neighborhood teenagers. Rarely have I seen one so rapt or appreciative. That the show was free enhanced the magic; this was street theater, people’s theater, of the highest order…” Jeff Coplon, critic.
