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MEASURE FOR MEASURE. By William Shakespeare. Co-directed by Noah Brody and Ben Steinfeld. Fiasco Theater, New Victory Theater, New York City. 13 March 2014.
The New Victory Theater stands on the new 42nd Street as New York City's premiere roadhouse for high-quality, international Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA). Demonstrating a commitment to nurturing fresh work by domestic companies, it started the New Victory LabWorks Project in 2013. During a LabWorks residency, local artists receive subsidized resources and rehearsal space to incubate endeavors that align with the New Victory's commitment to TYA. Not only was Fiasco Theater's Measure for Measure one of LabWorks' 2013-14 grantees, the New Victory reserved a slot in its season for the adaptation's world premiere. In doing so, Fiasco needed to walk the fine line between appealing to the New Victory's loyal family-centric demographic and engaging in a twenty-first-century exploration of Shakespeare's oft-problematic Measure.
Several graduates from the Brown University/ Trinity Repertory Company's MFA acting program started working together as Fiasco Theater in 2007. They use a collaborative structure, with three coartistic directors: Jessie Austrian, Noah Brody, and Ben Steinfeld. These three plus three others (Paul Coffey, Andy Grotelueschen, and Emily Young) work as the core acting company; as a united front, Fiasco materializes its signature stripped-down productions. In a few short years, the venture already has generated Twelfth Night, Cymbeline, and Into the Woods at far-flung regional theatre giants like Princeton's McCarter, San Diego's Old Globe, Broadway's Roundabout, and Capitol Hill's Folger.
Pairing the New Victory with any...