This preview has been provided by the Burning Coal Theatre Company.
By Randy Neale
Directed by Grant Neale
Nomad Theatrical Company of New York City is proud to present their touring production of The Fool’s Lear, written by, directed by, and starring brothers, Randy and Grant Neale, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, June 30, July 1 and July 2 at 7:30 pm and Sunday, July 3 at 2 pm at Burning Coal Theatre Company’s Murphey School, 224 Polk Street, Raleigh, NC. All tickets $10 on Thursday night, $18 on all other performances. Tickets available only at the door. For further details call 919-834-4001 or visit us online at www.burningcoal.org.
The Fool’s Lear is here for one weekend only! Don’t miss this hilarious new play!
ABOUT THE PLAY
This funny and poignant new play tells the tale of King Lear and his Fool, as they leave the pages of William Shakespeare’s famed play. Filled with hopeful plans, they enter into a stormy crisis of identity: The Fool desperately tries to hold on to the one power by which he has always defined himself, his ability to make the King laugh; The King abdicates his Kingship, ashamed of the tyrant Father he has become. Who are they after all? A clown and a king, a servant and his master, a father and his unacknowledged son, or an old man suffering dementia and his reluctant caregiver?
After a combined 70+ years in the theater THE FOOL’S LEAR represents the first full collaboration between brothers, Randy Neale (Playwright/Actor) and Grant Neale (Director/Actor). Told through the eyes of a motley Fool, the magical world of this production emerges from a large moveable trunk, filled with surprises. When the box opens, look out! Here come the peril and the valor, the tempest and the refuge, the friends and the foes, and the rubber chickens, swords, manacles and ukuleles that make any story worth watching!
“the most cleverly designed source of constant surprises I have ever seen on any stage… Yet it is the acting of these two prodigiously talented brothers that makes the show a wonder to behold… Trust me: You have never seen anything like this.” – Charleston Today
“Grant’s indefatigable energy and spot-on physical comedy make for a textbook Fool…Randy as King Lear has perfected a look of utter detachment and hopelessness and genuinely conveys the devolution of a great king into a Fool.” – The Post and Courier
“Neale is a physical comedian on par with Bill Irwin, a master of the pratfall and of something even rarer –silly gracefulness.” – The Daily News (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
For further information, please contact Burning Coal’s managing director, Simmie Kastner, at 919.834.4001 or visit our website at www.burningcoal.org.
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Burning Coal Theatre Company is Raleigh’s small, professional theatre. Burning Coal is an incorporated, non-profit [501 (c) (3)] organization. Burning Coal’s mission is to produce literate, visceral, affecting theatre that is experienced, not simply seen. Burning Coal produces explosive reexaminations of overlooked classic and modern plays, as well as new plays, whose themes and issues are of immediate concern to our audience, using the best local, national and international artists available. We work toward a theatre of high-energy performances and minimalist production values. The emphasis is on literate works that are felt and experienced viscerally, unlike more traditional linear plays, at which audiences are most often asked to observe without participating. Race and gender non-specific casting is an integral component of our perspective, as well as an international viewpoint.
