Families in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park will be treated next month to an all-female production of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” sparking a sudden popularity among teenage boys in the area now very interested in theater.
The play’s director, a man by the name of Pitr Strait, told CBS2, “We were really interested in getting an audience to be able see nudity as non-sexual, non-threatening, and eventually not even strange. By the end the play, it’s normal.”
Mirisa Roper who plays “Miranda” told Salon, “As a woman I feel like it’s time for us to like stand up and be like, ‘Hey, this is our body, deal with it,” without being creepy about it, you know. It’s just our body.” She added, “I really do hope that a production like this can normalize the female body and make it so that our bodies are not inherently sexual.”
“It’s being courageously vulnerable and generous with yourself as an artist, first and foremost, and saying, I’m doing this for this purpose,” said Suzannah Gratz, who plays “Sebastian.”
Tracie Morris, a humanities and media studies professor at the Pratt Institute, said the work alone grabs viewers’ attention.
“Shakespeare’s language is so strong that it really doesn’t matter what kind of costuming you have,” she said. “It doesn’t matter if you’re not wearing a costume.”
And though nudity is allowed in New York City when considered part of an artistic performance, many parents in the area would rather the actors keep their clothes on.
“My son, he’s 5 years old,” said Adelle Cekic of Prospect Park. “He might ask questions that I would not be able to answer him.”
The nude production was performed earlier this year in New York’s Central Park and will hit Brooklyn September 7-10 in the Music Pagoda. Admission is free.
Local news footage including an interview with the director, below:
Salon‘s article, “This NSFW nude production of “The Tempest” is the most brave and beautiful thing you will see today,” contends. “Nudity makes sense in ‘The Tempest,’ a story of 12-year exiles on a Caribbean Island who are always naked and the more ‘civilized’ characters who wash ashore the island after a storm capsizes their ship. The clothed newcomers begin in costume but later shed their ‘skins’ as they become more involved with the locals and their way of life.”
Exit thought from two new fans of Shakespeare:
