Theatre for a New Audience Presents

HENRY IV
By William Shakespeare
Adapted by Dakin Matthews
Directed by Eric Tucker

GET A NEW DEAL TICKET TO ANY PERFORMANCE FOR JUST $20!*
If you are 30 years old or under OR a full-time student of any age, you can purchase a $20 New Deal ticket (up to $95 value). Choose your seat, choose ticket type New Deal (change from Standard), and use promo code NEWDEALSKINT. ONE ID PER TICKET, FOR OTHER ELIGIBILITY REQUIREMENTS – SEE BELOW.

YOU’RE INVITED TO OUR NEW DEAL NIGHT!
If you’re eligible for the New Deal, join us at New Deal Night on Sunday, February 16! Buy your $20 New Deal ticket for the 1:00PM performance of Henry IV and stay for a free post-show talkback. This talkback will be immediately followed by a party at Fulton Hall with complimentary food and drinks and wonderful opportunities to connect with other artists and theatregoers.

SINGLE TICKETS AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE FOR $65** WITH CODE SKINT65!

GET TICKETS AT TFANA.ORG

Running time: 3:45 including two intermissions

Henry IV, Part One is one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays, but Henry IV, Part Two is rarely produced. Dakin Matthews has taken Henry IV, Part One and Part Two and adapted them into one three-act play of 3:45 including two intermissions, creating one play approximately half the length of the two separately.

With vivid, indelible characters drawn from 15th-century England’s civil war, the Adaptation is gripping and epic, exploring timeless questions about legitimate authority and how the private lives of rulers conflict with their public lives. When the play begins, King Henry IV has taken the throne from his cousin Richard. Henry is plagued by guilt and challenged by a rebellion led by the brave Henry Percy (Hotspur). Prince Hal, King Henry’s son, is alienated from his father and, rather than assuming the duties of the heir apparent, spends his time in a tavern with the old knight Falstaff, an outlaw, liar, and great wit with insatiable appetites.

Matthews writes “The two plays are one in conception…(and) together tell of the transition of power from father to son. Hal’s growth … and the choices he must make on the way to becoming Henry V, organize the entire action…It is the story of a man becoming a king. Simultaneously, it is the story of a boy becoming a man, and of a son disappointing, surprising, frustrating, pleasing, and ultimately outgrowing his own father.”

Emma Smith, Shakespeare scholar and author, observes Henry IV is also “deeply concerned with real and imagined relationships between fathers and sons. There’s Northumberland and his son Hotspur as well as King Henry and his son Hal. But when King Henry wishes, at the outset of the play, that the brave Hotspur were really his son… his wish for an alternative son legitimates Hal’s own wish for an alternative father.”

Henry IV introduces Falstaff, one of Shakespeare’s most compelling creations. Harold Bloom describes Falstaff as “the most intelligent person in all of literature” and also says of him, “Falstaff is life!”

Elijah Jones as Prince Henry (Hal), Dakin Matthews as King Henry IV, Cara Ricketts as Lady Percy, Jay O. Sanders as Sir John Falstaff, and James Udom as Henry Percy (Hotspur) lead this cast of sixteen.

The full company is William Bednar (Musician/Traveler/Messenger/Servant), Jordan Bellow (Ned Poins/Prince John/Feeble), Steven Epp (Earl of Worcester/Francis/Silence), Nigel Gore (Earl of Warwick/Sir Richard Vernon), Slate Holmgren (Nym/Sheriff/Mouldy/Earl of Douglas), Elijah Jones (Prince Henry (Hal), PJ Ju (Musician/Traveler/Messenger), John Keating (Earl of Westmoreland/Robert Shallow), Owen Laheen (Lady Mortimer/Traveler/Servant to Hotspur/Davy/Messenger/Page), Dakin Matthews (King Henry IV/Traveler), Cara Ricketts (Lady Percy/Doll Tearsheet), Michael Rogers (Earl of Northumberland/Owen Glendower/Bullcalf), Jay O. Sanders (Sir John Falstaff), Sandra Shipley (Mistress Quickly/Lady Northumberland/Archbishop of York), James Udom (Henry Percy (Hotspur)/Pistol), and Elan Zafir (Bardolph/Edmund Mortimer/Lord Hastings).

Polonsky Shakespeare Center: 262 Ashland Place, Brooklyn, NY 11217

* Each New Deal ticket holder must be 30 years of age and under, or a full-time student. A valid ID proving eligibility must be presented for each ticket purchased. IDs must be presented at entry beginning two hours prior to curtain. Failure to show proof of age or student ID will result in a surcharge for a full price ticket.

** $65 ticket discount offer expires 3/2/2025. Full price up to $95. Subject to availability. All internet and phone orders are subject to a handling fee. The offer may be discontinued at any time. Not valid for previous purchases.

Box Office hours are Monday–Saturday, 1–7pm and it can be reached at 646-553-3880 or tickets@TFANA.org.

Face masks are encouraged, but not required.
Click here to learn more about our policy on refunds and exchanges.

Henry IV Parts One and Two adapted by Dakin Matthews into a single play are the thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth plays by William Shakespeare in his thirty-eight-play canon which TFANA has produced. This production of Henry IV is supported by the donors to the Theatre’s Completing the Canon Fund: Frank and Aileen Drury, Alan Jones and Ashley Garrett, and the Michael Tuch Foundation.
Additional support for the production of Henry IV and related education programs in the New York City Public Schools was provided by The Achelis and Bodman Foundation.

Design by Paul Davis Studio / Paige Restaino

Deloitte and Bloomberg Philanthropies are the 2024-2025 Season Sponsors.

Principal support for Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs is provided by the Bay and Paul Foundations, The Jerome and Marlène Brody Foundation, the Howard Gilman Foundation, the Jerome L. Greene Foundation Fund at the New York Community Trust, The Dubose & Dorothy Heyward Memorial Fund, The Polonsky Foundation, The SHS Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Thompson Family Foundation.

Theatre for a New Audience’s season and programs are also made possible, in part, with public funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities; the National Endowment for the Arts; Shakespeare in American Communities, a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest; the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature; and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

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