State of the Arts Blog

Guthrie to screen six high-def London productions

Evidently the Guthrie Theater is enjoying its role as a high-quality art cinema. The theater has re-upped its partnership with the National Theatre in London, and will broadcast six of the NT's productions in the coming performance calendar. They are as follows:

Saturday, November 6 at 1 p.m.

Complicite's A Disappearing Number

Directed by Simon McBurney

A Disappearing Number weaves together the story of two love affairs, separated by a century and a continent. The first happens now. The second is set in 1914. It tells of the heartbreaking collaboration between the greatest natural mathematician of the 20th century, Srinivasa Ramanujan, a penniless Brahmin from Madras in South India, and his British counterpart, the brilliant Cambridge don GH Hardy

Thursday, January 20 at 7:30 p.m.

Shakespeare's Hamlet

Directed by Nicholas Hytner

Hamlet, the prince of Denmark, sees his father's ghost. Tormented with loathing and consumed by grief, he must avenge his father's murder. What he cannot foresee is the destruction that ensues.

Thursday, January 27 at 7:30 p.m.

FELA!

Using his pioneering music (a blend of jazz, funk and African rhythm and harmonies), FELA! reveals Fela Kuti's controversial life as an artist and political activist while featuring many of his songs and choroegrapher Bill T. Jones' staging.

Monday, February 21 at 7:30 p.m.

Donmar Warehouse presents Shakespeare's King Lear

Directed by Michael Grandage, and featuring Derek Jacobi in the title role.

An aging monarch. A kingdom divided. A child's love rejected. As Lear's world descends into chaos, all that he once believed is brought into question. One of the greatest works in western literature, King Lear explores the very nature of human existence: love and duty, power and loss, good and evil.

Sunday, April 3 at 1 p.m.

Danny Boyle's production of Frankenstein

A play by Nick Dear based on the novel by Mary Shelley

Oscar winner Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire) returns to his theater roots with a new adaptation of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. Boyle is making his debut at the National Theatre directing Nick Dear's play as a "large-scale and theatrically and visually ambitious stage production."

Monday, July 18 at 7:30 p.m.

Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard

Directed by Howard Davies

The Gaev family face bankruptcy and the loss of their estate. Even so, they refuse to sell their largest asset, their famous cherry orchard. The old world is giving way to the new, but the Gaevs seem not to have noticed the bewildering changes in the Russian way of life. The fate of the beautiful orchard becomes a symbol of the fate of all of the characters in this classic masterpiece.

Tickets for all performances are $20.

NT Live's first season was seen by over 150,000 people on 320 screens in 22 countries. Outside of the Guthrie Theater, the closest venues for Minnesotans to check out the NT productions are in Thunder Bay(Canada), Winnipeg(Canada), Lincoln(Nebraska) and Ann Arbor(Michigan).