(MORRISTOWN, NJ) -- The Morris Museum will launch its new partnership with National Theatre Live on Sunday, September 23 at 2:00pm in the Bickford Theatre. This new opportunity to experience theatre at the Bickford, provides the best seat in the house for live performances and encore screenings transmitted by satellite from stages in the UK.  Attendees will experience some of the foremost talents in these world-class productions.

During this season, the Bickford Theatre is pleased to present several Shakespearian classics, a Tony Award-winner from Broadway, plus two live events.  All screenings will be at 2:00pm with selected LIVE performances having an additional encore screening at 7:00pm. There will also be a special screening of Frankenstein on Halloween night, Wednesday, October 31, 2018 which is part of a themed event that also includes a ghost tour of the attic in the Morris Museum mansion. 

The first production coming to Bickford audiences is the renowned Hamlet, starring Academy Award nominee, Benedict Cumberbatch and Anastasia Hille. It is directed by Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Chimerica) and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions. 

‘Benedict Cumberbatch is a blazing five-star Hamlet’ Dominic Cavendish, Daily Telegraph. ‘One of the most visually and atmospherically stunning productions I’ve ever seen, of anything, ever.’ Andrzej Lukowski, Time Out. ‘This is a Hamlet for a world on the edge: a warning from history, and a plea for new ideas from a new generation.’ Matt Trueman, Variety

“By investing heavily in the technology needed to beam these stellar theatre performances to the Morris Museum, we're investing in our community and the theatre audiences of New Jersey, states Cleveland Johnson, Executive Director of the Morris Museum. “We aim to enrich the options for great, breathtaking, professional theatre in our area, and we trust that theatre lovers will flock to these unique events.  The production qualities, not to mention the star-studded casts, are just stunning."

Hamlet - Sunday, September 23, 2018, 2:00pm (Encore). Academy Award nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC’s Sherlock, The Imitation Game) takes on the title role of Shakespeare’s great tragedy from the Barbican Theatre. This production also stars Anastasia Hille as Gertrude.  As a country arms itself for war, a family tears itself apart. Forced to avenge his father’s death but paralysed by the task ahead, Hamlet rages against the impossibility of his predicament, threatening both his sanity and the security of the state.  Hamlet is directed by Lyndsey Turner (Posh, Chimerica) and produced by Sonia Friedman Productions.

Follies - Sunday, October 21, 2018, 2:00pm (Encore). Stephen Sondheim’s legendary musical, winner of seven Tony Awards, is staged for the first time at the National Theatre.  New York, 1971. There’s a party on the stage of the Weismann Theatre. Tomorrow the iconic building will be demolished. Thirty years after their final performance, the Follies girls gather to have a few drinks, sing a few songs and lie about themselves. Tracie Bennett, Janie Dee and Imelda Staunton play the magnificent Follies in this dazzling new production. Featuring a cast of 37 and an orchestra of 21, it’s directed by Dominic Cooke (The Comedy of Errors).

Frankenstein - Wednesday, October 31, 2018, 7:30pm (Encore). Captured live from the National Theatre stage in London, this thrilling, sold-out production became an international sensation. Directed by Academy Award-winner Danny Boyle (Trainspotting, Slumdog Millionaire), Frankenstein features Benedict Cumberbatch (Hamlet, BBC’s Sherlock) and Jonny Lee Miller (Elementary, Trainspotting).  Childlike in his innocence but grotesque in form, Frankenstein’s bewildered creature is cast out into a hostile universe by his horror-struck maker. Meeting with cruelty wherever he goes, the increasingly desperate and vengeful Creature determines to track down his creator and strike a terrifying deal.

6:00pm - 7:30pm - Reception featuring Halloween-themed fare, and a tour of the Museum’s haunted attic

7:30pm - 10:00pm- National Theatre Live production of Frankenstein (Encore) 

Tickets for this special event: Reception, tour, and film: $40 (Museum Members: $35); Film only: $25 (Museum Members: $20)

The Madness of George III - Tuesday, November 20, 2018, 2:00pm (LIVE) and 7:00pm (Encore). Multi-award-winning drama The Madness of George III will be broadcast live to cinemas, in National Theatre Live’s first ever broadcast from Nottingham Playhouse.  This epic play was written by one of Britain’s best-loved playwrights Alan Bennett (The History Boys, The Lady in the Van.  The cast of this new production includes Olivier Award-winners Mark Gatiss (Sherlock, Wolf Hall, NT Live Coriolanus) in the title role, and Adrian Scarborough (Gavin and Stacey, Upstairs Downstairs, After the Dance).  It’s 1786 and King George III is the most powerful man in the world. But his behaviour is becoming increasingly erratic as he succumbs to fits of lunacy. With the King’s mind unraveling at a dramatic pace, ambitious politicians and the scheming Prince of Wales threaten to undermine the power of the Crown, and expose the fine line between a King and a man.

I’m Not Running - Thursday, January 31, 2019, 2:00pm (LIVE) and 7:00pm (Encore). I’m Not Running is an explosive new play by David Hare, premiering at the National Theatre and broadcast live to theatrical venues.  Pauline Gibson has spent her life as a doctor, the inspiring leader of a local health campaign. When she crosses paths with her old boyfriend, a stalwart loyalist in Labor Party politics, she’s faced with an agonizing decision. What’s involved in sacrificing your private life and your piece of mind for something more than a single issue? Does she dare?

Hare was recently described by The Washington Post as ‘the premiere political dramatist writing in English’. His other work includes Pravda and Skylight, broadcast by National Theatre Live in 2014.

Julius Caesar - Sunday, February 24, 2019, 2:00pm (Encore). Ben Whishaw (The Danish Girl, Skyfall, Hamlet) and Michelle Fairley (Fortitude, Game of Thrones) play Brutus and Cassius, David Calder (The Lost City of Z, The Hatton Garden Job) plays Caesar and David Morrissey (The Missing, Hangmen, The Walking Dead) is Mark Antony. This production comes from The Bridge Theatre in London. Caesar returns in triumph to Rome and the people pour out of their homes to celebrate. Alarmed by the autocrat’s popularity, the educated élite conspire to bring him down. After his assassination, civil war erupts on the streets of the capital. 

Nicholas Hytner’s production will thrust the audience into the street party that greets Caesar’s return, the congress that witnesses his murder, the rally that assembles for his funeral and the chaos that explodes in its wake.

Macbeth - Sunday,  March 31, 2019, 2:00pm (Encore). Shakespeare’s most intense and terrifying tragedy, directed by Rufus Norris (The Threepenny Opera, London Road), will see Rory Kinnear (Young Marx, Othello) and Anne-Marie Duff (Oil, Suffragette) return to the National Theatre to play Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. The ruined aftermath of a bloody civil war. Ruthlessly fighting to survive, the Macbeths are propelled towards the crown by forces of elemental darkness.

Tickets: Museum Members: $20; Non-Members: $25. See pricing above for Halloween event including Frankenstein. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Box Office at 973.971.3706 or by visiting morrismuseum.org/theatre/

To become a Member, visit morrismuseum.org/museum-membership, email [email protected], or call 973.971.3721.  

The Bickford Theatre will host several other plays this season: Souvenir: A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins, Billy Bishop Goes to War, and My Son the Waiter, A Jewish Tragedy.  Visit morrismuseum.org/theatre/ to get further details.

Photos: (TOP) Anastasia Hille (Gertrude) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Hamlet). at the Barbican Theatre.  Photo by Johan Persson. 

(BOTTOM) Follies at the National Theatre.  Photo by Johan Persson.

National Theatre Live launched in June 2009 with a broadcast of the National Theatre production of Phèdre with Helen Mirren. The company has since broadcast more than 60 other productions live, from both the National Theatre and from other theatres in the UK. NT Live broadcasts have now been experienced by over 8 million people in over 2,500 venues around the world, including over 700 venues in the UK alone. Recent broadcasts include Follies with Academy Award nominee Imelda Staunton, Yerma with Olivier award winner Billie Piper, Angels in America with Academy Award nominee Andrew Garfield and Tony award winner Nathan Lane, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? with Olivier award winner Imelda Staunton and Tony award nominee Conleth Hill, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead with Daniel Radcliffe and Hedda Gabler with Golden Globe winner Ruth Wilson. The biggest single broadcast to date is Hamlet with Benedict Cumberbatch at the Barbican, which has been seen by over 800,000 people. In 2014 the National Theatre recorded its first production on Broadway, Of Mice and Men with James Franco and Chris O’Dowd, at the Longacre Theatre.

The Museum is located at 6 Normandy Heights Road (at the corner of Columbia Turnpike) in Morristown, NJ, and is open Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, 11:00am to 5:00pm and Sunday, 12:00 to 5:00pm. In addition, the Museum is open evenings from 5:00 to 8:00pm on the second and third Thursday of the month. Admission to the Museum is $10 for adults and $7 for children, students and senior citizens. Admission is always free for Museum members.  For more information, call (973) 971-3700, or visit www.morrismuseum.org.