Adapted and directed by Karin Coonrod with Compagnia de’ Colombari. Featuring original music by Frank London. Full cast and Creative team to be announced.

Compagnia de’ Colombari:
Artistic Director: Karin Coonrod
General Manager: Jennifer Harrison Newman
Associate Artistic Director: Alexis Woodard
Development Manager: Natalie King
Touring, Public Relations, Marketing & Communications Manager: Cindy Sibilsky

Compagnia de’ Colombari’s KING LEAR is a primal, physical, and potent “paper crown” Lear that strips the Shakespearean classic to its essence. Karin Coonrod utilizes her signature “multiplicity” to shift and deepen audiences’ connection with the characters. Ten diverse actors, ranging in age and gender, embody King Lear at the beginning and conduct a radical takeover of the text and space. Their unity fragments as they tear off their paper crowns and transform into other roles, competing for influence and diminishing the legion of Lears. Through a vigorous exploration of the characters’ egos, motivations, and power dynamics, the actors delve deeply into the internal and external journey of a stubborn, fractured soul who must lose everything to find himself. Transformation takes place in the apocalypse. Coonrod’s immersive production commands us to, as Kent demands of King Lear, “See better.” The play, explored in five “movements,” is adapted and directed by Karin Coonrod with long-time Colombari collaborators Frank London (original music) and Oana Botez (costumes), a talented team of designers, and a diverse cast of ten actors playing King Lear and other characters.

Following a successful world premiere at the International Festival of Arts & Ideas and a sold-out four-performance run in New York City in the summer of 2024, Compagnia de’ Colombari’s fresh, vital and urgent KING LEAR triumphantly returns for its official Off-Broadway run at La MaMa ETC at the Ellen Stewart Theatre for 16 performances, January 23-February 8, 2026.

Throughout 2026, Colombari is celebrating 22 years of generating spectacle, disrupting and reconstructing texts and spaces under the direction of Karin Coonrod. Of Coonrod’s direction, The New York Times proclaimed, “this experimental director has a knack for transforming high concepts into accessible theater” and calls her “a theater artist of far-reaching inventiveness” who uses a “style that deconstructs to construct.” Other season highlights include the U.K. premiere of Flannery O’Connor’s Revelation, and multiple tour dates for the community galvanizing project, Whitman on Walls! (WoW!). 

Praise for Compagnia de’ Colombari’s KING LEAR:

“The play is a buffet for the senses…Compagnia de’ Colombari shows the audience a deep look into their own psyches and a few hard truths about how to trust people and why. Most important, though, they show them an all-around good time.” —Eleanor Pollack, The New Haven Independent

“The production’s brilliant and generative coup de theatre – ten Kings in ten paper crowns all playing the title role – mounted to a takeover of the entire space of the theater. It made thrilling theatre…the opening scene in King Lear is the best scene in all of English drama and I don’t think I’ve seen a more exciting performance of that scene than this one.” —Steve Mentz, Shakespeare scholar and Professor of English at St. John’s University

Follow Colombari Online:
Website: www.colombari.org

Instagram: @compagniadecolombari 

Facebook: compagniadecolombari

For more information about Colombari’s KING LEAR: www.colombari.org/productions/king-lear

About Compagnia de’ Colombari:

Compagnia de’ Colombari is an international collective of performing artists, generating theater in surprising places for over 20 years under the vision of director Karin Coonrod. Colombari intentionally clashes cultures, traditions and art forms to bring fresh interpretations to the written word. It is founded on the twin principles that the magic of great theater can happen anywhere and be accessible to everyone. Colombari was born in Orvieto, Italy, in 2004, where the company re-imagined the medieval mystery plays and performed them in the streets and piazzas. The company launched a parallel theatrical experience at its New York City home base that same year. Colombari’s 2026 season features unique theatrical adaptations of works by Walt Whitman, Flannery O’Connor, and William Shakespeare. Compagnia de’ Colombari’s 20th Anniversary Season programs are made possible in part by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs (DCLA), The Eucalyptus Foundation, and other funders and donors.

CREDITS

Adapted and directed by Karin Coonrod with Compagnia de’ Colombari. Featuring original music by Frank London. Full cast and Creative team to be announced.

Compagnia de’ Colombari:
Artistic Director: Karin Coonrod
General Manager: Jennifer Harrison Newman
Associate Artistic Director: Alexis Woodard
Development Manager: Natalie King
Touring, Public Relations, Marketing & Communications Manager: Cindy Sibilsky