A Modern Merchant of Venice -- Shakespeare's Tragic Comedy on Wall Street
Gough Street Playhouse (1620 Gough St San Francisco, CA 94109)
- Full Price:
- $20.00 - $32.00
- Our Price:
- FREE - $16.00*
* Additional fees apply.
All offers for The Merchant of Venice have expired.
The last date listed for The Merchant of Venice was Sunday August 19, 2012 / 7:00pm.
Currently at Gough Street Playhouse:
Romantic Comedy Prelude to a Kiss From Custom Made Theatre Co.
- Full Price:
- $30.00
- Our Price:
- $10.00 - $15.00
Rita and Peter's whirlwind romance takes a startling turn in Prelude to a Kiss, a Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-nominated comedy by Craig Lucas. When a mysterious old man congratulates Rita with a kiss following her storybook wedding to Peter, the bride and the stranger exchange bodies. This thrusts the newlyweds into a mystical journey as they attempt to find the true strength of their love, beyond the surface connections that first drew them to one another. Prelude to a Kiss was a Broadway hit and a feature film starring Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan. Stuart Bousel directs this Custom Made Theatre Co. production. Learn More
Goldstar Member Tips
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John Navas on Information
Casual
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John Navas on Information
Free street parking usually available
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John Navas on Information
Snacks available
44 Goldstar Member Reviews
Goldstar Member
Red Velvet Member
Written on Aug 21 2012Amateurish performance. Wearing modern dress and holding i-phones and mackbooks doesn't make the play modern.
Margo
Written on Aug 20 2012It was the closing night so this review is really to support the work of Custom Made theater. The group takes on interesting and often uncommon plays. This production set Shakespeare in a modern time period, which worked quite well as Americans can't "speak Shakespeare" and so a contemporary pseudo-Wall Street setting took care of much of that. The acting was uneven, but some people were very good, Catz Forsman as Shylock, even though his articulation was not quite perfect. Several others were also very good. The theater group deserves attendance and financial support.
Goldstar Member
Written on Aug 14 2012This is the 3rd show I've seen presented by the Custom Made Theatre Co. at the Gough Street Playhouse. They are quite simply incredible. With little funding and even less space, their productions are thoughtful, well-acted, fresh, inventive, and thought-provoking. Live community theatre at its best. I actually intend to become a subscriber for this next season.
Dave Newton
Red Velvet Member
Written on Aug 13 2012A very interesting adaptation of a great play. Strong performances at a very intimate, yet comfortable venue. We had dinner before the event within a block of the venue and for some reason got great street parking. The only negative was very heavy Bay Bridge Traffic on the way there, which is hardly relevant to this review.
More Information About The Merchant of Venice
Website
http://www.custommade.org/the-merchant-of-venice/
Quotes & Highlights
- "The spectacle is so perfectly realized that it seems the play was written for modern times." --Stage and Cinema
- "While strutting their cells phones, investments and irony, the cast seemed so at home in this language that they brought the text to a whole new level." --Stark Insider (4 of 5 stars)
- "This is a memorable Merchant of Venice, original, exciting, and highly recommended ... As a gay man and a Jew, I was very moved by this production." --Theatre Storm
Description
It’s a new take, but the quality of mercy is not strained in the Custom Made Theater production of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice.
Custom Made's production, directed by Stuart Bousel, who directed last season’s BATCC nominated M. Butterfly, will relocate the classically controversial play to modern times, where fortune-seeking Bassanio (Dash Hillman) will pursue the love of genius heiress Portia (Megan Briggs) in an atmosphere reminiscent of Wall Street and peopled by rogue traders and arrogant millionaires.
The way to the lady is barred by an edict created by her controlling father that she will lose her fortune if her potential husbands don't undergo and succeed at a game of chance. Bassanio enlists the financial aid of successful trader Antonio (Ryan Hayes) but he enters his own gamble when he agrees to a backroom deal with Shylock (Catz Forsman), a socially ostracized banker whose daughter Jessica (Kim Saunders) is planning a secret elopement with her young lover, the feckless Lorenzo (Brian Martin).
A stylistic cross between Mad Men and American Psycho, Bousel's production explores how money, greed, recognition and power corrupt souls and tear lives apart in an era when sacrificing lives and livelihoods is the cost of doing business.
About the Ticket Supplier: Custom Made Theatre Co.
Winner of the SF Bay Critic Circle award for Best Overall Play of 2012, The Custom Made Theatre Co. is a San Francisco-based not-for-profit theatre dedicated to ensemble-based, socially relevant productions. Custom Made is the managing company of the Gough Street Playhouse, an intimate thrust theatre without a bad seat in the house, where they present a five play season, along with numerous readings, workshops and classes. Most recently, Custom Made produced the Goldstar ROAR award-winning "Eurydice"
and the Bay Area Premiere of Christopher Durang's "Why Torture is Wrong, and the People Who Love Them."