Tuesday, February 7, 2012

The King (Lear) featuring John Basinger


The play, conceived and adapted by John Basinger, is the story of King Lear, from one man’s perspective – Lear’s. The performances will benefitOddfellows Playhouse Youth Theater. The production is directed by James Stidfole and produced by Hygienic Theater of New London.


“The King (Lear)” will be performed Thursday February 9, Friday February 10, and Saturday February 11 at 7:30pm


Said Basinger, “I had really decided that to take on King Lear for a full production in 2009, I needed to begin learning the part so I could fully commit. It took me a good year, year and a half to get it all in my head. When it looked like the production would falter after Jeffery [Allen] left, it struck me that it is really an odd play – so much of the play goes on around Lear and is enacted by other characters." Basinger might be best known throughout central CT for his marathon performance of Milton’s “Paradise Lost” from memory. "Having done all of Paradise Lost as a live performance, recreating the characters, it wasn’t much of a leap to say, this could be done with [King] Lear.” Basinger describes The King as a “one character play, whose sole character speaks only Lear’s lines.”

Tickets are $25.00 for adults and $12 for students and can be purchased by calling the box office at (860) 347-6143 or online at www.oddfellows.org

Oddfellows programming is made possible through the generous support of the CT Department of Education, the CT Commission on Culture & Tourism, The Middlesex United Way, The Stare Fund, the Middletown Commission on the Arts, Pratt & Whitney, J. Walton Bissell Foundation, CDBG Scholarship Program, WESU 88.1FM, Triple Frog, Comcast and the Daphne Seybolt Culpeper Memorial Fund.

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