Homage to Shakespeare, Gyula Shakespeare Festival
/A jazz concert in homage to Shakespeare.
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Ophélia, Gyula Shakespeare Festival
/“An enchanting Japanese adaptation of Hamlet – After that an exhibition about the traditional Japanese Theatre.”
Read MoreHamlet and Japan: Visions of Ophelia
/The first serious Japanese translation of ‘To be or not to be’ performed alongside a comic version – in English and in Japanese – written in 1874. The evening cumulates in the Kabuki-inspired Visions of Ophelia performed by Japanese actress Aki Isoda, who toured her one-woman show worldwide.
Read MoreLe Off (Festival d'Avignon)
/“The Festival d’Avignon celebrated its 70th edition in 2016 and while there were no major Shakespearean productions on the main programme, they dominated the programme of the Festival Off d’Avignon (the fringe festival). The only playwright whose works were performed and adapted more was Molière. From puppet shows to experimental takes on the tragedies, Le Off offered a wide range of Shakespeare for all ages.”
Read MoreWlm Shxpr, EDG and Knights of Light Entertainment
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Wlm Shxpr is an original production by the EDG and Knights of the Light Entertainment. The audience is led in three groups by three performers of the sonnets in a promenade experience of Shakespeare's most famous scenes. All three narrators explain their view on the bard who remains absent. The production encompasses original writing by Daniel Morgenroth and a dozen original songs based on the sonnets by the EDG's music team.
Read MoreShakespeare – Den Absolutte Sanningen (Shakespeare - The Absolute Truth), 123 Schtunk
/After several unique shows based on Shakespeare’s plays, 123 Schtunk now makes a production about the man himself. Who was the man who wrote those fascinating plays? Where was he from? Where did he go? Many questions, few answers. 123Schtunk presents the absolute truth about Shakespeare, his theatre and his London.
Read MoreScrew Your Courage! (or The Bloody Crown), Klahr Thorsen
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Witches curse an actress to play the role of Lady Macbeth over and over again until she gets it just right. Will she be able to conquer madness, Serbians, and enchanted bagpipers long enough to triumph as Shakespeare's most misunderstood heroine?
Read MoreA Midsummer Night's Dreaming Under the Southern Bough
/A collaborative project between the University of Leeds (UK) and the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE) (Beijing) to celebrate Shakespeare and Tang Xianzu in 2016, the 400th anniversary of the deaths of two legendary playwrights. The creative team from UIBE performed an adaptation of the magical forest scenes from Shakespeare's play and the team from Leeds performed a contemporary response to Tang Xianzu's _Nanke Ji_.
“Using Shakespeare's classic tale of love and misunderstanding, traditional Chinese theatre techniques, music, humour and contemporary staging, Beijing's ST@UIBE company examines love, gender politics and the changing role of women in contemporary Chinese society.” (description from the Edinburgh Fringe Programme)
Read MoreImpromptu Shakespeare, KPS Productions; Get Lost & Found
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“An improvised Shakespeare play inspired by audience suggestions. Bursting with comedy, love, tragedy, mistaken identity and everything in between, to delight Shakespeare nerds and newbies alike.” --description from Fringe Programme
Read MoreLady Shakespeare, WhoAreYouWilliam
/Lady Shakespeare examines Elizabeth I as Shakespeare’s alter-ego. “In this play, I defend the idea that Elizabeth I was the author of many Shakespeare’s plays”, explains Lois Blanco, citing the basis of the play he has written and directed for the 2016 Fringe, in the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death. This solo show is performed by Paula Blanco, a Spanish actress embodying seven different characters: four of Shakespeare’s central female characters, William Shakespeare himself and reigning monarch Elizabeth I.” --description from company website
Read MoreRoyal Winter Music, Würzburg
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A performance of Hans Werner Henze's Royal Winter Music, songs inspired by Shakespeare's works. Guitar performance by Stefan Koim, interspersed with dramatic readings of excerpts of the plays. The performance was part of a public lecture cycle (Shakespeare400) which was designed to celebrate Shakespeare and inspire a wide audience.
Read MoreInto the Breach, London
/“George Crocker is keen to liven up his dull life so he decides to join the village Drama Club. What happens then turns his world upside down. Set during the Second World War this nostalgic, funny and moving story will appeal to all. It is a vivid portrait of village life with all seventeen colourful characters played by one man.”
The Jack Studio Theatre is a space for companies to explore. They also boast their own in-house team, and have received multiple Off West End Nominations, including productions of Merchant of Venice and Julius Caesar. Mark Carey has been touring with Into The Breach since 2013; it is an exciting addition to the theatre's repertoire.
The Mousetrap: Anti-Hamlet
/A work-in-progress by three young actors.
“Weaving personal critique with the canonical Western text, Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare, three theatre-makers from Metro Manila eviscerate the rigours of classical theatre through irreverent intrusions of performance art, devised-theatre, DIY aesthetics, all within a self-imposed PHP 5,000.00 budget.” –description from the Karnabal Festival Facebook site
Read MoreHamlet#casting
/"Hamlet#Casting is a combination of contradictions. It is a tale of the everyday, which can be banal and full of played-out scenarios. Musical hits which tell of unrequited love, Facebook conversations which do not bring happiness, dreams from TV serials. Against this background, Hamlet asks himself questions which sound like a repetitive chorus: am I good enough, valued, desired? Am I myself? Can one really live in a world in which one is always being watched?"
Read MoreThe Donkey Show
/A new, London production of the off-Broadway hit The Donkey Show clashed Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream with retro disco in this production in which interactive promenade theatre met a late-1970s dance party.
Read Moreالأخرى (Al’ukhraa), Manhattan Shakespeare Project
/“Through personal accounts written by Muslim girls and Shakespeare’s text of Othello, Al’ukhraa explores how our opinions of “the other” effect the community as a whole, and how the current political climate of fear is directly impacting our NYC high school girls.” –description from the company website
Read MoreFunharmonics Family Concert: Bottom’s Dream
/The London Philharmonic Orchestra and Globe Education created a musical version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream including pieces by Mendelssohn, Elgar and Britten.
Read MoreLady Macbeth, South West Dance Theatre
/This production moved Shakespeare's Macbeth into the present day and thrust Lady Macbeth into the spotlight. Combining ballet, street, contemporary dance, Latin, poetry, prose and British Sign language for the deaf, South West Dance Theatre retold the classic tale. In this version, it was Lady Macbeth who found her natural drive and motivations displaced, forfeiting virtue and honour for a more meteoric career.
South West Dance Theatre is a Bristol-based collective that promotes diversity in dance through eclectic home-grown choreography drawing on a range of styles from ballet and contemporary to street, jazz and Latin. As well as performing to audiences in a range of venues from theatres to festivals, the company brings their fresh expressive dance theatre to a variety of subjects from the physics of light to Shakespeare. In April 2016, the company also led a Macbeth-inspired dance workshop for pupils at Elmfield School for Deaf.
Read MoreQueen Lear, Union Theatre
/In this production of Shakespeare’s Lear, Phil Willmott casts Ursula Mohan as the monarch. The tagline of the production is ‘What if King Lear was a Woman?’ Reviewers have commented on the striking mother/daughter dynamics that emerge as a result of the casting choice.
Read MorePericles, Prince of La Habana, Celebrating Cultures
/Celebrating Cultures present a new production of William Shakespeare’s Pericles in a new translation by Salvador Oliva and Angel Luis Pujante.
Pericles will use the context of Cuba itself, finding home grown cultural equivalents – a boxing tournament replaces knights in armour, a Santeria priest heals Pericles’ wife who is thought to have died. The play will be intertwined with Cuban vocal melodies and Caribbean percussion.
Pericles, one of Shakespeare’s less typical plays, and originally set in the Mediterranean, transplants effortlessly to the Caribbean, from one sea to another where Pericles is shipwrecked. A myriad surreptitious coincidences draw in the audience to follow the twists and turns of the story, each new scene a surprise, contrasting vividly with the previous one.
Pericles takes part in two contests to win a bride, believes his wife to have died at sea in childbirth and that his daughter, 14 years later, has also died only to be reunited with both of them. Pirates sell his daughter to a brothel and his wife isn’t really dead. And so it goes, suspension of disbelief continually hanging by a thread in this fast paced, twisting tale of great loss and greater redemption filled with warriors, assassins, pirates, fishermen and whores.
Shakespeare's momentous tale and unforgettable characters combined with Cuba’s political, religious and unforgiving passion couldn’t fit a better Elizabethan glove.
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