The Aquila Theatre Company

Aquila Theatre was founded in London in 1991 by Peter Meineck and has been based in New York City since 1999. Aquila’s mission is to bring the greatest theatrical works to the greatest number and presents a regular season of plays in New York and at international festivals. Education programming is an important component of Aquila’s mission. The Shakespeare Leaders is a bold and innovative program in Harlem, expanding in Fall 2008 to the Bronx, through which students develop style and technique by learning and performing Shakespeare. Aquila provides access for people in under-served urban and rural communities, touring to around seventy American towns and cities a year.

Aquila’s holistic performance approach is a technique developed by Peter Meineck that combines text and physical action based in a theory of theatrical utilitarianism. It is derived from Greek drama, Shakespeare and the teachings of Jeremy Bentham. The technique is aimed to create an aesthetic environment, bound by cohesive elements of sound, design, lighting and music, where the performer can create and recreate a role in a consistently changing theatrical atmosphere.

Aquila is currently touring Julius Caesar and Joseph Heller’s Catch-22.


Past productions include:

The Iliad, Prometheus Bound with David Oyelowo, Romeo & Juliet, The Canterbury Tales, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man with choreographer Doug Varone, The Comedy of Errors, Twelfth Night, A Very Naughty Greek Play, Oedipus at Colonus with Bill Pullman, The Man Who Would Be King, Othello, Agamemmnon with Olympia Dukakis, The Importance of Being Earnest, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, The Wrath of Achilles, Cyrano de Bergerac, King Lear, Oedipus the King, The Odyssey, Birds, Macbeth, Wasps, Coriolanus, Ajax, Frogs, and Clouds.


NEW YORK SEASON

For the 08/09 New York Season Aquila will be presenting Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, Homer’s Iliad, a New Translations Reading Series, and The Romeo & Juliet Project.

Aquila has affiliations with 45 Bleeker, Carnegie Hall, City Center, Classic Stage Company, John Jay College Theater, Lincoln Center Institute, New Victory Theater, Baruch Performing Arts Center and The Skirball Center at New York University.


Educational Initiatives

Aquila is the professional company in residence at the Center for Ancient Studies at New York University.

While touring, Aquila presented over 120 educational offerings across the country in 2007-08 season: special school performances, talk-backs, master classes, workshops, and on-site school visits, reaching 26,000 middle and high school students.

In 2006, Aquila developed the Shakespeare Leaders program with support from the Charles Hayden Foundation. The program reached over 2,000 residents of Harlem in its first year, and is currently expanding.

In conjunction with the Lincoln Center Institute for Arts & Education, Aquila’s Young Audience company plays at 35-40 schools in the five boroughs to an audience of over 3,000.


Collaborations

Aquila works with artists from many other disciplines such as film, TV, opera, classical music and dance, including Olympia Dukakis, Bill Pullman, Mikis Theodorakis, Peter Tiboris, Doug Varone, and David Oyelowo.


External Links: [2268]