Ethan Hawke will return to Tom Stoppard’s work for a one-night celebration of the late playwright at Brooklyn’s Theatre for a New Audience on November 16.
The actor, who earned a Tony Award nomination for his performance in Stoppard’s The Coast of Utopia, will headline Tom Stoppard’s Shakespeare, an evening of readings and remembrances at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center. The program will explore Stoppard’s lifelong fascination with Shakespeare, from Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead to Dogg’s Hamlet and Cahoot’s Macbeth.
Isaac Butler will direct the November 16 event, which also features Rosaline Elbay, Josh Hamilton and Aasif Mandvi. Hamilton appeared alongside Hawke in the original Broadway production of The Coast of Utopia.
The tribute will inaugurate Theatre for a New Audience’s Spotlight Series, a program of readings, performances and conversations featuring contemporary theater artists. The series joins the company’s regular productions under artistic director Arin Arbus.
Stoppard, who died in 2025 at 88, built a career out of intellectual puzzles, linguistic games and theatrical reinvention. His final play, Leopoldstadt, won the Tony Award for best play in 2023. The new Brooklyn program will return to Shakespeare, whose characters and language inspired some of Stoppard’s most celebrated experiments.
The performance begins at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, November 16, at the Polonsky Shakespeare Center, 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn. Tickets cost $60, with $50 seats for subscribers and $20 tickets for qualifying younger audiences and students.
Tickets and further information are available from Theatre for a New Audience.
