In Shakespeare’s tale of love, revenge and forgiveness, Prospero has been robbed of his kingdom and cast upon an island. Amidst a band of usurpers, fools, and creatures both airy and devilish he pulls the strings of magic to create a human storm. Directed by Tisch veteran Jim Calder and André Holland.
The Continuum Company
The Continuum Company thrives on the challenge in presenting both classical and new works as a company collaboration. The goal is to stretch the actors, the audience, and our way of telling a story. This work takes a special actor. The NYU Tisch Graduate Acting department, chaired by Mark Wing-Davey, is the training ground for the professional actors in this production and their versatility and talent are essential to this creation. This particular production takes on a larger collaborative reach as it includes the talents of the NYU undergraduate students from the Commedia class who are at La Pietra studying with Jim Calder, Jacob Olesen and Nolufefe Mtshabe. This production of The Tempest has been a large collaboration from Tisch: script compiled and edited by Deborah Hecht and André Holland, costumes by Maggie Raywood, lighting by Christina Watanabe, production supervisor Ann Matthews, all from Tisch Graduate acting and the company manager, Peter Molesworth, a recent NYU Tisch graduate,
With the outstanding support of Ellyn Toscano, the NYU Global Network University, Dean Emerita Campbell and Dean Green, the Continuum Company has been creating works at Villa La Pietra for over 9 years. Beginning in 2006 with a three-person The Tempest, consecutive years saw a three-person Romeo and Juliet, a collaboration with musician Jonathan Batiste on Midsummer Night’s Dream, a five-person As You Like It, a three person Macbeth and Hamlet, and most recently The Iliad: Guerillas at Troy. The Tempest and A Midsummer Night’s Dream have returned to New York City for extended runs at Classic.
Jim Calder is the Artistic Director of the Continuum Company, Director of La Pietra Summer Theatre Festival, Head of Movement at Graduate Acting Program NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts, recipient of grants from NEA, Rockefeller Foundation, US-Mexico Fund for Culture, NYSCA and recipient of David Payne Carter Award for Excellence in Teaching and a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship. Directed works in New York City at INTAR Theater, Lincoln Center Institute, Pearl Theatre, Classic Stage Company, with workshop presentation at The Public, New York Theatre Workshop and Home.
Jim has performed at The Old Globe, P.S. 122, INTAR Theater, and throughout Europe with Teatro De La Grappe. He was the lead actor in PBS’s Noddy & Friends TV show and was a consultant for the development of the show and has performed under the direction of Jacques LeCoq in numerous TV specials in France. Jim directed the premier of Andy Teirstein’s opera A Blessing on the Moon in Vancouver, Canada.
Has been acting in Italy and abroad for more than thirty years. His distinguished, lengthy artistic career began in 1978-79 at “Clownskolan” in Stockholm, in Sweden where he was born. He went from there to Paris where he spent two years at the Ècole “Jacques Lecoq”. Then, in 1981, he founded the Donati Olesen Company, with whom he performed more than 2500 shows in Italy and around the world over the course of thirty years. With six languages at his command – Italian, English, French, German, Danish and Swedish – he has been able to work in throughout Europe, in North Africa, South America, and Asia as well as in numerous short and feature-length films. He has presented many well-received theatrical performances in which he was not only the lead or supporting actor but also author and director. He has also written and performed in many television and radio programs. Finally, in 2002, he acquired a teacher’s diploma in the Feldenkrais Method® in Rome, where he has been living for 24 years.
André Holland is an alum of New York University’s Graduate Acting Program. Since receiving his MFA in 2006, André has appeared in numerous plays, films, and television shows. His most recent film and television credits are the Oscar nominated film, Selma in which he played Andrew Young; and, the HBO/Cinemax series The Knick, directed by Steven Soderbergh. His recent stage appearances include, All’s Well That Ends Well, Measure for Measure, Much Ado About Nothing and As You Like It (all at the New York Public Theatre/Shakespeare in the Park); The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet (with the Continuum Company); The Whipping Man (Manhattan Theatre Club); Wig Out (Vineyard Theatre); The Brother/Sister Plays (NY Public Theatre); Blue Door (Playwrights Horizons Theatre); In the Red and Brown Water (Alliance Theatre, Atlanta). André has also appeared on television in Burn Notice, 1600 Penn, Friends with Benefits and Law and Order among others. And his additional film credits include; Miracle at St. Anna (directed by Spike Lee), Bride Wars (with Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson) and Sugar (HBO). He also co-starred in the Warner Brothers film 42 in which he portrayed sportswriter Wendell Smith who chronicled Jackie Robinson’s career.
He received his MFA from NYU’s graduate acting program in 1998. Since then he has appeared on Broadway as Mark Rylance’s understudy in Boeing Boeing. He has appeared off-Broadway in The Killer at Theatre For A New Audience directed by Darko Tresnjak, The Internationalist at The Vineyard Theater, and Aunt Dan and Lemon with the New Group. Regionally he has worked at The Shakespeare Theatre Company, Yale Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Guthrie Theater, and Seattle Repertory Theatre. He has been seen onscreen in Unforgettable, Rescue Me, Law and Order, and The Royal Tenenbaums.
Korey Jackson is a native of Maryland who graduated from NYU’s Graduate Acting program in 2011. While studying at NYU, he had the pleasure of performing the world premiere of Tony Kushner’s The Henry Box Brown Play in which he played the Virginian abolitionist. Other theater credits include Wild With Happy (Public Theater), Far From Heaven (Playwrights Horizons), School For Wives (Two River Theater). TV: The Following (FOX), Law & Order: SVU (NBC), Homeland (Showtime), Royal Pains (USA), Nurse Jackie (Showtime). Film: 5 Flights Up (Focus).
Annie Purcell most recently appeared off-Broadway in Fashions for Men (The Mint). On Broadway in: The Coast of Utopia: Voyage, Shipwreck, and Salvage at Lincoln Center, Dividing the Estate, and Awake and Sing! Off-Broadway: Illusions (Baryshnikov Center for the Arts), Twelfth Night (Fiasco), Cycling Past the Matterhorn (Theater Row), What May Fall (Fordham Alumni Theatre Company). Regional: Awake and Sing! (Huntington Theatre Co.), Partners (Humana Festival, ATL), The Real Thing (Studio Theatre), Ed, Downloaded (Denver Center Theatre Co.), Scorched, A Christmas Carol, and Endgame/Play (American Conservatory Theatre), The Tosca Café (Theatre Calgary, Vancouver Playhouse), In the Next Room or The Vibrator Play (The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis), Elektra (Getty Villa), Mary’s Wedding (Portland Stage Company), The House in Hydesville (Geva Theatre), and Uncle Vanya (Cal Shakes). Film and Television: The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Louie and The Black Donnellys. B.A., Fordham University at Lincoln Center, M.F.A. NYU. Annie also writes plays, teaches, and delights in making theater in all ways.
New York and Regional credits include Water by the Spoonful (Old Globe Theatre), Henry IV, Part 1 (Pearl Theatre Company), and You For Me For You (Woolly Mammoth Theatre). Television and film credits include Broad City (Comedy Central), Mozart in the Jungle (Amazon) and the upcoming film Manchester-by-the- Sea. Ruibo holds an MFA from the NYU Graduate Acting Program and a BFA from Boston University’s College of Fine Arts.
New York: Off-Broadway: The Civilians’ Brooklyn @ Eye Level, (dir. Steven Cosson, Brooklyn Lyceum); Scariest (dir. Ari Edelson, Meredith McDonough, Bleeker Street Theatre); Widows (dir. Hal Brooks, 59E59 Street Theaters); King Lear (dir. James Lapine, Public Theatre); Beauty of the Father (dir. Michael Greif, MTC); Twilight: Los Angeles, 1992 (dir. Liz Diamond, Lincoln Center Institute); Winter’s Tale (dir. Barry Edelstein, CSC). Regional: In the Next Room (dir. Les Waters, Berkeley Repertory Theater) Sarah Ruhl’s Passion Play (dir. Mark Wing-Davey, Yale Repertory Theatre, Goodman Theatre); King Lear (dir. Robert Falls, Goodman + Shakespeare Theatre Company), Our Town (dir. Bartlett Sher, Intiman); Much Ado About Nothing (dir. Peter Dubois, Cal Shakes). Film/TV: Filters (dir. JohnFiorelli); Third Watch, Law & Order: Criminal Intent (NBC); One Life to Live, All My Children (ABC). Training: New York University’s Graduate Acting Program.
