During their acclaimed production of As You Like It two years ago, the Royal Shakespeare Company had an actor skin and behead a dead rabbit on stage, reportedly getting big laughs and applause from Brits who were thrilled to watch him tossing rabbit pieces into a bucket. Show biz! But while those kinds of gross-out theatrics may tickle the punters across the pond, in America rabbit advocates are up in arms about the production, which opens tonight in a full-size replica of their theater in Stratford-upon-Avon, assembled in the Park Avenue Armory's massive Drill Hall. more ›

The Royal Shakespeare Company will spend several hundred thousand dollars donated by Ohio State University to construct a full-size replica of their new theater in Stratford-upon-Avon, ship it in pieces to NYC, and assemble it in the Park Avenue Armory's massive Drill Hall, which has 55,000 square feet of uncolumned space. In an unprecedented plan announced today, the company will use the replica to stage five plays in repertory in July and August 2011 as part of the Lincoln Center Festival. (The five plays are Antony and Cleopatra, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, King Lear, Romeo and Juliet and The Winter’s Tale.) more ›

A welcoming red and white striped awning dawns the name of the Cornelia Street Cafe, a longtime West Village fixture with artist roots that recently celebrated its 30th birthday. Located on a "mini restaurant row" including the teeny Le Gigot, Home, and Pearl Oyster Bar, the cafe is much more spacious than its neighbors with four separate rooms on two floors, each dotted with the work of local artists. Though the West Village today is not the Village of 1977, artists still come and go from the Cornelia St. Cafe with fervor-- for the food, for the performance, or for both. The cafe continues to host nightly events and over the years has acted as stage to poet and senator Eugene McCarthy, members of the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Songwriters Exchange, and during the next week Eve Packer, a duo of Sondheim-singing sisters, and Cassorla are scheduled to perform. more ›