Members of the company of Red Bull Theater’s online reading of “The African Company Presents Richard III,” online this week only.
When history and theatre work together, the results can be a perfect match. Even when the subject matter is a painful and violent episode from our nation’s theatrical and racial history. This is very true of Carlyle Brown’s 1994 play, “The African Company Presents Richard III.” The play combines historical fact with the panache of theatre to make an indelible impression of an episode that took place almost exactly two hundred years ago this year.
Red Bull Theater, known for revitalizing classic plays for modern audiences, assembled a stellar cast to present a reading of Brown’s play. It is available for just this week for free via the theater’s YouTube channel. The story is a fictionalized account of the events of 1821 when the then prestigious African Grove Theatre, the most commercially successful black playhouse in New York City, wen