Castillo dramaturg Dan Friedman with Eva Brenner, one of Castillo’s co-founders, who will be directing Hamletmachine this season, at the 2008 Otto Rene Castillo Awards for Political Theatre.

The Castillo Theatre continues to work and play well with others in our 2008-2009 season “Castillo Performs the World”. This spring Castillo is hosting a production from the legendary Negro Ensemble Company, Sundown Names and Night-Gone Things by Leslie Lee, and directed by one of our closest cultural partners, Woodie King, Jr. (May 15-June 7). We're also hosting “Improv at Castillo,” an improvisational triple-header on May 9, featuring our own This Is Your Ridiculous Life!! along with shows by two of New York’s hottest comedy improv troupes: FACE and Centralia. 

And — zu guter Letzt — Castillo will wrap up the season playing with the German playwright Heiner Müller, and Viennese director Eva Brenner, in what will be Castillo’s third production of Müller's masterwork, Hamletmachine. Eva, a founder of Castillo, first introduced us to Müller back in the mid-1980s, so in this season, which has featured the work of friends new and old, it was only fitting to reach out to a dear friend. 

The seven-page text of Hamletmachine is one of the best-known examples of Müller’s dream-like fragmentary writing, which Müller insisted was simply the jumping-off point for a production — encouraging creativity without dictating the action. Fred Newman has led Castillo’s approach to staging Müller, working to render these dense, poetic, historically referenced texts accessible to American audiences. It's been a tall order indeed, and a key to achieving it has been the addition of original songs to the plays.

Castillo will be priming its audiences in May and June with script readings conducted by cast members, theatre volunteers and supporting members of the theatre (complete with “how-to” kits), as well as several sessions of Hamletmachine Camp, where "campers" will improvise with the text, creating songs, drawings and videos in response to the script. The production itself will feature original music, a large cast, an environmental set, and audiences will be invited to bring a picnic dinner with them. What does any of this have to do with Hamlet (or machines)? Come to the show June 12-28 and find out!