Playwrite: Bob Shuman
Director: Frank Farrell

Collected by his sister, Judith, "Tongs and Bones Shakespeare" includes three one acts culled from the miscellaneous papers and sides, as well as incomplete early drafts, of the great Bard. The manuscripts, found diluted and corrupted, discovered in Brno, Czech Republic after WWII, were only recognized and identified by collectors in 1993, following the end of the Cold War. The story of the uneducated sibling's work, with an itinerant actor who helped her organize and compile the pieces, before her untimely death, due to suicide, in London, has largely been ignored and untold. Bob Shuman's revised versions of the material, directed by Frank Farrell. The fragments highlight characters who do not always play prominent roles in the larger "sister" or well-known companion works, and answer questions such as:  What became of the Little Indian Boy in"A Midsummer's Night Dream"? How did Jacques, in"As You Like It," lose his mirth? And why did Ariel need to be freed, before ever meeting Prospero, in "The Tempest?" among others. The Tongs and Bones texts have been called "grotesque," "comic," and "proto-Brutalist," and highlight compositions from the recordings of current Congolese musicians.

 

Cast
Tianna Noni Alley
Eisley Constantine
Meghan Covington
Alejandro Flores
Jennifer Kim
Mychal Leverage
Emily Ross

Playwright: BOB SHUMAN (MFA in Dramatic Writing, NYU/Tisch) is the owner of Marit Literary Agency and the Theatre Web site Stage Voices (www.stagevoices.com), which offers video Shakespeare quizzes, world theatre news, Stanislavki quotes, and current show reviews, plus much more. He is also a playwright, a senior editor, with experience in mainstream publishing, a college professor, and a recipient of Hunter College's Irv Zarkower Award for excellence in playwriting.  His dramatic work has appeared in four anthologies from Applause Theatre and Cinema Books.  He has also co-edited five drama books, including Acts of War, Iraq and Afghanistan in Seven Plays (Northwestern University Press), as well as the audition titles for Applause, and even a monologue book for kids.  He has written for the Eugene O'Neill Society and judged work for the New York Innovative Theatre Awards. He is co-author, with fashion florist Michael George, of “Simply Elegant Flowers.” Shuman is a past fellow of the Lark Theatre Company, and his work has been given readings with the Amoralists, Phoenix Theatre Ensemble, Second Stage, and the WPA, among others.  Productions and readings of his work have been given at Ursinus College, Hunter College, and at the Arthur Seelen Theatre at the Drama Book Shop. He has also spearheaded three monologue events at the Drama Book Shop, where he was a featured author, and at the Cornelia Street Cafe.  He attended the Sewanee Writers' Conference, in Tennessee, and his musical compositions for “As You Like It” and “Twelfth Night” have been heard at Ursinus College; additionally, he has acted in college productions and in local theatre in New Jersey. He has now seen productions of every Shakespeare play, many of which he has reviewed for his site, since 2008--he has also interviewed industry notables, such as playwright Albert Innaurato (in his last "talk" before his death), Natalia Kaliada (Belarus Free Theatre), and Mia Yoo (La MaMa), among others. In 2021, one of the projects he represented as a literary agent was optioned by HBO, and he currently teaches courses on Eastern European Literature and Environmental writers.

Director: FRANK FARRELL (Director & Artistic Director of the First Flight Theatre Company) has recently directed three short films and one full length; “Walt Kelly’s Songs of the Pogo,” “The Leaves Were Falling,” “Salvador and In the Garden of Live Flowers.” He was an actor in Chicago for 40 years receiving three Joseph Jefferson acting nominations and recently returned to NYC where he was born. While in Chicago he directed and produced plays for Free Shakespeare Theatre Company, Temporary Theatre, Shakespeare’s Herd, Steppenwolf Theater, Raven Theatre, Equity Library Theater Chicago, the North Lakeside Players and Theatre-Hikes. For Citadel Theatre in Lake Forest, IL he directed outdoor productions of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “As You Like It,” “Spoon River Anthology,” “Romeo and Juliet” and “Scapin.” Frank has formed six theater companies along the way including Theatre-Hikes in Chicago and, in Grand Haven, Michigan, the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company. In NYC he wrote, directed and produced “Forgotten Soldiers from Our Forgotten War” for the First Flight Theatre Company, the seventh theatre group he has formed. For First Flight he also coordinated several stage readings of Maxwell Anderson’s plays in New York City and Chicago. Frank directed and produced a production of Maxwell Anderson’s play “Valley Forge,” as well as a production of “Little Women” for First Flight at The Hermitage Mansion in Bergen County, New Jersey. His Zoom film “In the Garden of Live Flowers” recently won Best Biopic at the Green Academy Awards Film Festival. Since 2015 he has published seven books including “Forgotten Soldiers from Our Forgotten War,” all available at Amazon.