FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (8/05)
Contact: Patty Roberts, Coordinator, 318-869-5747, or Lynn Stewart or Kelsey Johnson, Centenary News Service, 318-841-7265

Shakespeare's Blackfriars Stage Company Performs at Centenary College Sept. 20-24 on its 2005-06 "Atomic Fission" Tour; Tickets on Sale Sept. 6

	Shakespeare's Blackfriars Stage Company 2005-06

SHREVEPORT, LA— Shakespeare's Blackfriars Stage Company (formerly the Shenandaoh Shakespeare Express) will visit Centenary College Sept. 20-24 on its 2005-06 "Atomic Fission" tour. The Company will present multiple performances of three plays: Return to the Forbidden Planet, Richard III and Much Ado About Nothing.

The Company will present Return to the Forbidden Planet on Sept. 20, 22 and 24 at 7 p.m. Much Ado About Nothing is scheduled for Sept. 21 at 7 p.m. and Sept. 24 at 1 p.m. Richard III will run on Sept. 23 at 7 p.m. These performances are open to the public. In addition, there will be a private performance of Richard III at 10 a.m. on Sept. 21 exclusively for invited area high school students.

All performances will take place in Kilpatrick Auditorium of the Smith Building at the corner of Kings Highway and Woodlawn Avenue on Centenary's campus. Centenary is hosting the event with support from the Louisiana Division of the Arts, the Shreveport Regional Arts Council Re-grant Program, the Centenary Muses and the
Women's Endowment Quorum. Tickets go on sale Sept. 6. Purchases can be made by calling Centenary’s ticket line at 318-841-7289. Prices for adults are $15; seniors, $10; and students, $8.

Return to the Forbidden Planet, written by Bob Carlton, is a musical based loosely on The Forbidden Planet — a science fiction movie with strong themes from Shakespeare's The Tempest. In Return to the Forbidden Planet, mad scientist Doctor Prospero is banished into hyperspace with his infant daughter, Miranda, and lands on the uncharted Planet D'Illyria. Rock and roll hits of the fifties and sixties, sci-fi fantasy and dialogue from the greatest plays ever written all collide to keep the audience laughing and jamming. The musical won the 1990 Olivier Award for Best Musical.

In Much Ado About Nothing, Shakespeare presents the glittering wit of Beatrice and Benedick and the heroic bumbling of Dogberry and company. As the villain Don John devises a scheme to shatter the wedding of young lovers Claudio and Hero, the friends of Beatrice and Benedick conspire to trick them into admitting their much-denied love for one another. In this comedy, Shakespeare makes the audience members laugh but also breaks their hearts and magically puts it all back together again.

Shakespeare's Richard III chronicles the cataclysmic end of England's greatest power struggle, the Wars of the Roses. Richard, as the play's ringmaster, takes the audience into his confidence as he plots to kill everyone before him in line for the throne.

For more information about Shakespeare's Blackfriars Stage Company, see http://www.shenandoahshakespeare.com/touring/.

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