SEPTEMBER 26 – OCTOBER 11

A Co-production with New Performance Traditions

Performs at Z Space in San Francisco

KING LEAR

by William Shakespeare
directed by Michael Socrates Moran
music composed by Paul Dresher

VIDEOS

IN THE MEDIA

10 of the Best Plays and Musicals to See This Fall in the Bay Area

“Oakland Theater Project continues their daring season of rethinking classics and putting visceral new razors on stories of brutality. Lear is the model for many of theater’s greatest characters, and an embodiment of self-inflected wounds.” 
— David John Chavéz, KQED

From ‘Oh, Mary!’ to ‘King Lear’: Nine Bay Area shows to see this fall

“When Oakland Theater Project Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran takes on Shakespeare, we get glorious inventions like last year’s “Hamlet”… Now the wild visionary takes on Shakespeare’s tragedy of inheritance. J Jha, a fearless actor whose every performance seems to straddle the line between ecstasy and madness, plays the misguided king”
— Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle

Fall Arts Preview: Grab a seat (or run for your life) at these 11 great stage shows

“Before Succession won truckloads of Emmys, Shakespeare wrote the definitive tale of inheritance battles and family secrets. Michael Socrates Moran directs the show that not only features an abundance of Bay Area talent, but brings OTP across the Bridge to Z Space.”
— Charles Lewis III, 48 Hills

REVIEWS

“You won’t see a more spectacular production anytime soon… director Michael Socrates Moran has a bold vision for this Lear… It is both sacred and profane, noble, and base, and searingly emotional… a beautiful score of original music composed by Paul Dresher performed live by the Dresher|Davel Invented Instrument Duo… [J Jha’s] transformation from king to beggar to redemption is beautifully conceived. His counterpoint is Edmund the Clown, played with swaggering wickedness by Dean Linnard… Excellent featured performances abound: multi-talented writer, composer, musician, and performer Rinde Eckert plays the Fool, the vessel of truth and Tyler Aguallo as Edgar / Poor Tom shine brightly.”
— Steve Murray, BroadwayWorld.com

“One of the best parts of this show is… the way actor J Jha as the aging monarch… makes suffering exquisite…There are moments of actual transcendence, starting with incantations by Rinde Eckert as the Fool and Zarif’s Cordelia, accompanied by the otherworldly music of Paul Dresher and Joel Davel… Wildly different from most other interpretations… from one of the most vital directors in Bay Area theater.” 
— Lily Janiak, San Francisco Chronicle

“The truly stunning element in Oakland Theater Project’s “King Lear”… is one character: the Fool. It’s brilliant that director (and OTP co-founder/co-artistic director) Michael Socrates Moran cast actor-composer-singer and longtime Bay Area performing artist Rinde Eckert in the key role… he is riveting. And how equally brilliant that Eckert’s sometime collaborator, composer Paul Dresher, provides live music onstage (with Joel Davel) that transforms the Fool’s snarky-wise commentary into song.”
– Jean Schiffman, Bay City News

“Innovative… We can depend upon Artistic Director Michael Socrates Moran to offer new ways into classic plays, taking big risks and revealing new connections we never noticed before… Sam Fehr’s sensational scenic design: a reality TV show that exposes politics as spectacle rather than substance… As Gloucester’s bastard son Edmund, Dean Linnard dazzles… As the Fool, Eckert’s distinctive singing voice mesmerizes”
– Jenyth Jo, Theatrius

“Weird and wonderful… strokes of beauty and pathos… witty jests and theatrical inventions… Composer Paul Dresher’s beautiful, atomistic score emphasizes the dreamlike aspects of Moran’s approach. Lear’s scenes of madness, as brought to otherworldly life by actor J Jha, flicker and vacillate in the kind of quantum superposition of sanity and insanity that is the very essence of the old king’s struggles. Rinde Eckert… plays Lear’s Fool as a visitor from some parallel dimension, crooning wordlessly and scarcely intersecting with the action going on around him.”

– Joshua Kosman, On a Pacific Aisle

“Transformative, innovative, and hauntingly memorable… The story leaps to life with a flourish of energy and grace. There are so many levels to this story, to these characters… sucks the very marrow from Shakespeare’s bones to deliver it all to you.”

– Kelly Rogers Flynt, BroadwayWorld.com

“Wildly creative… a massive, multi-media interpretation of the Bard's King Lear… The performances are almost uniformly compelling and heart-wrenching… there are big themes at work here, themes that transcend time and history to speak to us in the 21st century.”

– Patrick Thomas, Talkin’ Broadway

PRODUCTION PHOTOS

by Ben Krantz Studio

REHEARSAL PHOTOS

by Ben Krantz Studio

CAST

* Member of Actors Equity Association

LOCATION

All performances take place at Z Space‘s Steindler Stage in San Francisco.

Z Space
450 Florida St, San Francisco, CA 94110

Directions: Visit Z Space’s website for detailed instructions how to get to the venue.