American Shakespeare Center Only U.S. Theatre Featured in BBC's SHAKESPEARE UNCOVERED Series, 2/8

The American Shakespeare Center is the only U.S. theatre company included in the British Broadcasting Corporation's six-part series, "Shakespeare Uncovered." The final installment of the series, "Shakespeare Uncovered: The Tempest with Trevor Nunn," features the ASC prominently through rehearsal and performance footage from the company's 2011 production of The Tempest as well as interviews with ASC Co-Founder and Artistic Director Jim Warren and actors James Keegan and Miriam Donald Burrows.

"We are honored to be a part of this remarkable series along with the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe, Trevor Nunn and the amazingly talented fellow actors, directors, companies and scholars they assembled," said Jim Warren, who also directed the 2011 production for the ASC. "For 25 years, our mission has been to recover the joy and accessibility of Shakespeare using the staging conditions for which he wrote. Being part of this series allows us to share a piece of that mission and a peek at the world's only re-creation of Shakespeare's indoor theatre for a trans-Atlantic audience as well as PBS viewers nationwide."

The episode explores how Shakespeare would have accomplished the "special effects" written into the Tempest script, such as the storm at the opening of the play. With its focus on Shakespeare's Staging Conditions and the unique setting of the Blackfriars Playhouse, the ASC was a natural choice to illuminate possible solutions.

"Shakespeare Uncovered" will air on PBS stations nationwide on three consecutive Friday evenings, beginning January 25. The Tempest episode will air on February 8. More information on the series can be found at http://video.pbs.org/program/shakespeare-uncovered and www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k7blq. The full series aired in the United Kingdom in 2012. Others featured in the series include Ethan Hawke, Joely Richardson, Derek Jacobi, Jeremy Irons, and David Tennant.

The American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA, recovers the joys and accessibility of Shakespeare's theatre, language, and humanity by exploring the English Renaissance stage and its practices through performance and education. The ASC's Blackfriars Playhouse, the world's only re-creation of Shakespeare's indoor theatre, is open year-round for productions of classic plays, which have been hailed by The Washington Post as "shamelessly entertaining" and by The Boston Globe as "phenomenal...bursting with energy." Founded in 1988 as Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, the organization became the American Shakespeare Center in 2005 and can be found online at www.americanshakespearecenter.com.

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