Great Basin Arts and Entertainment is bringing the Nevada Shakespeare Company’s new production of Macbeth to the Lowry High Theater on Saturday, October 17.  Doors will open at 6:00 and the curtain will go up at 7:00 PM for a performance held as a benefit for the BackPack Kids program. All ticket proceeds are going to this worthwhile program of the Winnemucca Food Bank which discretely places weekend food supplies in the back packs of needy elementary school children each Friday.

In celebration of their 10th season, Nevada Shakespeare Company offers an edgy new production of Macbeth, Shakespeare’s popular tale of horror, drawn from Scottish history, with great warriors, witches and ghostly apparitions.

The production is directed by the talented David Weinberg.

“Having Dave as our director is a godsend,” says Cameron Crain, Nevada Shakes’ President and Managing Artistic Director, “his training, experience and insights into the play, as well as our company, make him the perfect fit for this production.”

Mr. Weinberg was born and raised in Reno, and has spent over a decade working and studying theatre in Los Angeles, New York and London. The play also boasts stage combat choreography by Mr. JR Beardsley, an international fight director, and includes several violent fights with a range of authentic-looking broad swords, shields and battle axes.

“This is one of Shakespeare’s bloodiest, spookiest plays, and it’s a perfect thing to present this time of year,” says Beardsley regarding the staging of Macbeth during the Halloween season, “My job is to help recreate the violence of the time period and make it look real and interesting.”

This bloody production promises to be a fresh, dynamic and entertaining event for the Halloween season: after all, Macbeth is filled with sword fights, witches, blood lust, betrayal and justice. Before there was Harry Potter there was Shakespeare! Macbeth will be touring throughout the month of October: 10.16 at the Dayton Valley Country Club, 10.17 at Lowry High School in Winnemucca, 10.23 at Piper’s Opera House, 10.24, 10.29, 10.30 and 10.31 at the Nelson Building in downtown Reno.

This bloody production promises to be a fresh, dynamic and entertaining event for the Halloween season: after all, Macbeth is filled with sword fights, witches, blood lust, betrayal and justice. Before there was Harry Potter there was Shakespeare!

Thanks to the Nevada Arts Council’s Stimulus Grant, the Nevada Humanities, the Carol Franc Buck Foundation and the City of Reno’s Arts and Culture program, we have a Reno-born and British-trained director: Dave Weinberg, a British-born Reno-resident playing the lead: Joe Atack, and an international stage and film combat artist conducting the choreography: JR Beardsley. The cast is compromised of local artists from Caron Valley, Carson, Lake Tahoe, Reno, including the amazing Stephanie Richardson as Lady Macbeth.

For details and information contact Cameron Crain, 775.232.4974, cameroncrain@gmail.com or visit www.nevada-shakespeare.org or www.gbae.org.

Tickets are $5 for students and $10 for others, and are available at Nature’s Corner, The Martin Hotel, and Global Coffee. Proceeds from all ticket sales will go to the local Backpack Kids program.

About the BackPack Program

There are children in our local communities that rely on resources such as free or reduced-priced school lunch, during the school year.

The BackPack Program is designed to meet the needs of these hungry children at times when other resources are not available, such as weekends and school vacations.

How the Backpack Program works

• Backpacks filled with food that children take home on weekends
• Food is child-friendly, nonperishable, easily consumed and vitamin fortified
• Backpacks are discreetly distributed to children on the last day before the weekend or holiday vacation