E. Rex-Off Broadway

August & September 2008 - the NY Off-Broadway Premiere of ‘Elizabeth Rex’ by Timothy Findley - Now a double NY Innovative Theater Award Nominee and Winner for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actress! RAVE REVIEWS FROM THE NY TIMES, VARIETY, TIMEOUT NY, THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE AND PICK OF THE WEEK FROM OFFOFFONLINE -OUR FIRST MOVE TO AN OFF-BROADWAY RUN!!

RAVE REVIEWS FROM THE NY TIMES, VARIETY, TIMEOUT NY, THE NEW YORKER MAGAZINE AND PICK OF THE WEEK FROM OFFOFFONLINE -OUR FIRST MOVE TO AN OFF-BROADWAY RUN!!

Be sure to get your Off-Broadway tickets today!

Shakespeare Cast Party by Royal Command By NEIL GENZLINGER- NY TIMES Critics Choice
Published: August 19, 2008
This is the time of year when theater is often staged in barns, but New Yorkers don’t have to go to Maine or the Midwest for the experience. There’s a ripping good performance taking place in a barn right on West 21st Street in Manhattan. The 13 skilled actors in this production, by the Nicu’s Spoon company, transport you back to Shakespeare’s day effortlessly. The play is “Elizabeth Rex”, and the author, the Canadian playwright Timothy Findley, gives us an evening in 1601, setting his story in a barn where Shakespeare (Scott Nogi, in a very appealing turn) and his theatrical troupe repair after a performance of “Much Ado About Nothing” for Queen Elizabeth I. This, though, is not just any night: it’s the night before the execution of the Earl of Essex, for whom the queen had long had a special fondness. Distraught, Elizabeth (Stephanie Barton-Farcas, delightfully commanding) turns up and directs Shakespeare and his players to keep her company. She finds a combative soul mate in one particular actor, Ned Lowenscroft (Michael DiGioia), who is gay and famous for his female roles. He is dying of syphilis, and the two (as Mr. Findley tells us a bit too didactically) make a symbiotic trade-off: he will try to teach the hardened queen to mourn like a woman, and she will try to teach him to die like a man.”

A Tale Fit For a Queen
by Suzanne Lynch, OFFOFFONLINE PICK OF THE WEEK
Elizabeth Rex reviewed August 16, 2008 - Timothy Findley’s play, Elizabeth Rex , playing now in an Off-Broadway transfer at Center Stage, is an achievement. Presented here in New York by the Playwright’s Guild of Canada and the theater ensemble Nicu’s Spoon, the innovative yet lengthy production features two standout actors and a somewhat hearty supporting cast. Both Barton-Farcas and Digioia do a terrific job, subtle and animated and heartfelt, and it is the moments in the play when these two powerhouses go head-to-head that are the most interesting. Though the play could easily be clipped by 15 minutes, the scenerio itself and much of its heightened language is extremely clever. The costumes, particularly those of Queen Elizabeth, as chosen by Rien Schlect, are gorgeous.

VARIETY -Off Broadway
Elizabeth Rex - By SAM THIELMAN
The late Timothy Findley’s sprawling period drama “Elizabeth Rex” takes its sweet time gearing up, but once the playwright has arranged the play’s complicated duel between Barton-Farcas’ magnetic Queen Elizabeth and dying, upstart Shakespearean actor Ned Lowenscroft, the play launches into the stratosphere. DiGioia’s self-absorbed actor is at first sad, then offensive, and finally, blessedly gracious as he and the Queen argue and come to a more thorough understanding of themselves. When DiGioia hears the voice of his long-dead lover — the one who gave him the disease — the play transcends its time for a few minutes and steps into what Shakespeare himself called “the undiscovered country.” What happens to the dead? ”

The Siegel Column
Two Great Queens in Elizabeth Rex
Elizabeth Rex is a fanciful and fascinating play by Timothy Findley in which Queen Elizabeth spends the night with William Shakespeare and his troupe of actors while she awaits the execution for treason that she ordered of her great love, Robert, The Earl of Essex. The play becomes a clash between the Queen, who has denied her womanhood in order to rule England, and the troupe’s premier actor who has made his career playing women’s roles. Which is the greater female? Directed with flair by Joanne Zipay, the show ultimately features two wonderful actors battling it out on stage like grand divas. Both Michael DiGioia and Stephanie Barton-Farcas, the latter playing the Queen to the hilt, give strong and highly memorable performances in this thought-provoking play. A wonderful supporting cast creates a terrific texture upon which the main drama unfolds, a drama in which the outlandish actor, having nothing to lose, is constantly taunting the otherwise imperious Queen.