Past Marlowe Productions
Plays About Marlowe
This is an archive of past productions of plays about Christopher Marlowe or related subjects of interest from 2008 onwards that have all finished. The details and review links may still be of interest.
Kit Marlowe in New York [2023]
- Play: Kit Marlowe - a play reading
- Date: Monday 03 April 2023 at 19:30.
- Venue: Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY, 11217 [Map & Directions]
- Tickets: Priced $50 (plus $5 fee) available online or from the Box Office (212.343.7394).
- Summary: The Red Bull Theater Company presents a reading of Kit Marlowe written by David Grimm and directed by Emma Rose Went. "Set in the seedy underworld of Elizabethan England, the story of the meteoric rise and fall of Christopher Marlowe – playwright, poet, spy, and sexual outlaw – charts the ambitions of youth in a cold and unforgiving world. Performed by an all women and non-binary company, director Emma Rosa Went seeks to reinvigorate the play's radical and provocative landscape, by giving a new generation of queer artists access to its explosive and urgent questions about art, love, depravity, redemption, and the cost of genius."
- Website Links: Red Bull Theater Company presents a reading of Kit Marlowe at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center in New York. The play originally premiered at The Public Theatre in 2000.
Born With Teeth [2023]
- Play: Born With Teeth
- Date: Saturday 04 March to Sunday 02 April 2023.
- Performance Times: Tuesday to Saturday evenings at 19:30; Sunday evenings at 19:00; Matinees variously Satuday, Sunday and Wednesday at 13:00. Some open-captioned, ASL-interpreted and audio-described performances.
- Venue: McGuire Proscenium Stage at the Guthrie Theater, 818 South 2nd Street, Minneapolis, MN 55415. [Map & Directions]
- Tickets: Priced $20-$80 available online or from the Box Office.
- Reviews of Houston Alley Theatre 2022 Production: Broadway World; Houston Press; Houston Chronicle; PlayShakespeare.com - review by Cynthia Greenwood.
- Reviews of Guthrie Theatre 2023 Production: Peter Kirwan (Bardathon); Broadway World; Aisle Say; PhenoMNal Twin Cities; Play Off The Page; The Stages of MN; Star-Tribune.
- Reviews of Berkeley Aurora Theatre 2023 Production: Mercury News; Theatrius; SFgate.
- Reviews of Richmond Shakespeare 2024 Production: Peter Kirwan (Bardathon); RVA Mag; RVArt Review.
- Reviews of Sarasota Asola Theatre 2024 Production: Broadway World; Bradenton Times; Total Theatre.
- Summary: An Alley Theatre Production of Born With Teeth at the Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, written by Liz Duffy Adams and directed by Rob Melrose. The play premiered at the Alley Theatre in Houston, Texas in May-June 2022, with Matthew Amendt as Kit Marlowe and Dylan Godwin as William Shakespeare. "A quick-witted faceoff. An aging authoritarian ruler, a violent police state and a restless, polarized people seething with paranoia: It’s a dangerous time for poets. Two of them — the great Kit Marlowe and the up-and-comer William Shakespeare — meet in the back room of a pub to collaborate on a history play cycle, navigate the perils of art under a totalitarian regime and flirt like young men with everything to lose. One of them may well be the death of the other."
- Website Links: An Alley Theatre production of Born With Teeth at the Guthrie Theatre | Alley Chat Podcast with playwright Liz Duffy Adams, director Rob Melrose and director of design Michael Locher | Video Trailer on Vimeo | Writer's Take.
The Marlowe Papers, Brighton [2016]
- Play: The Marlowe Papers
- Performance Times: Sunday 15 May; Sunday 22 May to Wednesday 25 May; and Saturday 04 June 2016 at 20:30.
- Venue: Studio 2 at The Warren, St Peter's Church, York Place, Brighton BN1 4GU. [Map]
- Tickets: Priced £15 | £13.50 Concessions | £12 Students | £7.50 Carer/Support Worker, available online or from the Other Place Box Office (01273-987516).
- Reviews: Voice Magazine; BroadwayBaby; FringeReview.
- Summary: After a highly acclaimed opening run in January, The Marlowe Papers returns at The Other Place as part of the Brighton Fringe Festival. A one-man play directed by Nicola Haydn, written by Ros Barber and Nicola Haydn, adapted from Ros Barber's prize-winning verse novel, and with Jamie Martin as Kit Marlowe et al. "You're the author of the greatest plays of all time. But nobody knows. And if it gets out, you're dead. It's 1593, and Kit Marlowe, the most successful playwright in Elizabethan England, is stabbed through the eye at the age of 29. Except he isn't. Because Marlowe is also a secret agent. His secret service colleagues have faked his death because protecting the Queen from Catholic assassination plots has led to his arrest for atheism, a capital crime. Join Kit on his journey into exile and anonymity as he recounts the story of beer-drinking, duels and spying that led to his losing lovers, friends and his very identity... and wrestles with the problem that all his new work is being credited to one William Shakespeare."
- Website Links: The OtherPlace presents The Marlowe Papers - The Play, adapted from the prize-winning verse novel The Marlowe Papers written by Ros Barber | Video Trailer | Music by James Fiddes Smith | Interview with director Nicola Hadyn in The Argus | Interview with author Ros Barber in Bibliofreak.
The Dead Shepherd, London [2015]
- Play: The Dead Shepherd
- Dates: Tuesday 10 March to Saturday 28 March 2015.
- Performance Times: Tuesday to Saturday evenings at 7.30pm; Sunday matinee at 4pm.
- Venue: The White Bear Theatre, 138 Kennington Park Road, Kennington, London, SE11 4DJ [Map]. Nearest Tube: Kennington (Northern Line).
- Tickets: Priced £14 | £10 concessions, available onlineor from the Box Office (0844 8700 887).
- Reviews: LondonTheatre1; Theatre Bubble; Everything Theatre.
- Summary: The White Bear presents The Dead Shepherd written by Robert Pope and Ian Dixon-Potter, directed by Linda Miller, with Ben Scarles as Kit Marlowe. "1615: A reclusive former playwright, mysteriously retired at the height of his powers, recounts a harrowing tale to the daughter of his estranged patron. He recalls how he began his career in the shadow of Christopher Marlowe, poet, heretic, sodomite, spy and the greatest playwright of the age. 1590: Young Will Shakespeare, newly arrived in London, falls in with Marlowe and is introduced to The School of Night, a secret society whose subversive gatherings come to the attention of the most powerful man in England, Her Majesty's Secretary of State, Sir Robert Cecil. Will is plunged into a sinister world of lies, conspiracy, betrayal, torture and revenge, culminating in Cecil's decree to have Marlowe's seditious mouth silenced for ever. 1593: As twilight falls across the Deptford Strand a scream rings out from a rooming house on the filthy dockside. Marlowe is dead, taking with him the dark secrets of Elizabeth's court to an unmarked grave."
- Website Links: The White Bear Theatre presents the The Dead Shepherd. Writers' SoundCloud PodCast.
Shakespeare in Love, London [2014]
- Play: Shakespeare in Love
- Date: Tuesday 22 July 2014 to Saturday 18 April 2015.
- Performance Times: Monday to Saturday evenings at 19:30; matinees at 14:30 on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
- Venue: Noël Coward Theatre, 85-88 St Martin's Ln, London WC2N 4AP. [Map & Directions]
- Tickets: Priced £15 to £57.50 available online or from the Box Office (0844 482 5141).
- Reviews: Guardian; Observer; Independent; FT; Telegraph [£]; New York Times; Evening Standard; What's On Stage; Variety; British Theatre Guide; LondonTheatre1; London Theatre; Chicago Tribune; Hollywood Reporter; Jewish Chronicle; The Shakespeare Blog; The Arts Desk; Peter Viney; The Idle Woman; Digital Spy; West End Wilma; Glasgow Theatre Blog; West End Whingers; There Ought to be Clowns; Critically Blonde.
- Summary: Disney Theatrical Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions present the play of Shakespeare in Love, adapted by Lee Hall from the 1998 film written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, directed by Declan Donnellan, with the original cast including Tom Bateman as Will Shakespeare, Lucy Briggs-Owen as Viola de Lesseps, David Oakes as Kit Marlowe, and Paul Chahidi as Philip Henslowe. "Young Will Shakespeare has writer's block. The deadline for his new play is fast approaching, but he's in desperate need of inspiration. That is, until he finds his muse... the feisty, brilliant and beautiful Viola. This crafty young woman is Will’s greatest admirer and will stop at nothing (including breaking the law) to appear in his next play. Against a bustling background of mistaken identity, ruthless scheming and backstage theatrics, Will’s love for Viola quickly blossoms, inspiring him to write his greatest romantic masterpiece."
- Website Links: Disney Theatrical Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions present the play Shakespeare in Love at the Noël Coward Theatre in London | Wikipedia page | Video Trailer | BBC interview with Tom Bateman.