Hamlet To Premiere In The US In April


Royal Shakespeare Company’s Production of Hamlet Airs on THIRTEEN’S Great Performances
Sir Patrick Stewart and David Tennant Star in Shakespearean Classic on PBS Stations Nationwide
in April 2010

Shakespeare’s immortal “To be, or not to be” takes on a whole new meaning (and medium) as classical stage and screen actors Sir Patrick Stewart and David Tennant reprise their roles for an upcoming television adaptation of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s (RSC) 2008 stage production of Hamlet. The production will be presented on PBS by the Great Performances series on Wednesday, April 28, 2010, at 8 p.m. EST (check local listings).

Great Performances is a production of THIRTEEN in association with WNET.ORG – one of America’s most prolific and respected public media providers.
Hamlet aired in the UK on Boxing Day, and more than 900,000 viewers tuned in for the BBC broadcast. In an article in The Observer, Britain’s Prime Minister Gordon Brown wrote: "Like many people, I had my love of Shakespeare reawakened by David Tennant's TV portrayal of Hamlet over Christmas."
Veteran stage and screen actor Sir Patrick Stewart reprises his 2009 Laurence Olivier Award-winning role of Claudius in the screen version, which is directed by Gregory Doran, who also returns to reprise his stage direction of the production (in 2001, Doran directed the dynamic television adaptation of the RSC’s Macbeth). Co-produced by Illuminations Television and the RSC for the BBC, in association with Thirteen for WNET.ORG and NHK, the adaptation recreates the tone and atmosphere of the stage production in a film-style interpretation shot in HD on location at St. Joseph’s College in Mill Hill, London. The production is produced for television by John Wyver and Sebastian Grant.
Great Performances is funded by the Irene Diamond Fund, the National Endowment for the Arts, Vivian Milstein, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, public television viewers, and PBS. For Great Performances, Bill O’Donnell is series producer; David Horn is executive producer.
Visit Great Performances Online at www.pbs.org/gperf for additional information about this and other programs.