A project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen.
The unique and much-loved Isango Ensemble from Cape Town kick proceedings off with a carnival interpretation of this great narrative poem. Isango have already enchanted audiences in the West End with their reimagining of The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso and The Magic Flute – Impempe Yomlingo. They will bring the same modern African sensibility, brimming over Full Article…
The dramatic festivities open with the group who have travelled furthest. Rawiri Paratene (star of Whale Rider) has assembled New Zealand’s best Maori actors for a production of Troilus and Cressida. In an exquisite translation by Te Haumihiata Mason, the production will incorporate many aspects of Maori culture; the haka (warrior dance) and waiata (song), Full Article…
The Vakhtangov, on the Arbat, is at the heart of Moscow both geographically and theatrically. From humble beginnings in 1913, this company, which began in basements and front rooms, grew to inhabit one of Moscow’s most beautiful theatres. Always following the twin influences of Meyerhold and Stanislavsky, of spectacle and psychological truth, it has created Full Article…
An exuberant, African take on Shakespeare’s comedy of failed courtship, Bitter Pill bring their version of The Merry Wives of Windsor from Nairobi to London. Full of laughter and fun, this production, celebrating the wit and independence of urban African women, first played at the Harare International Festival of Arts in Zimbabwe, before travelling north Full Article…
The National Theatre of Greece are no strangers to London: Dimitris Rondiris’ productions of Hamlet and Electra played at His Majesty’s Theatre in 1939, and the company was a regular in the World Theatre Seasons at Aldwych in the 1960s and 1970s. Like Pericles, they have finally returned – with twelve of Greece’s leading actors Full Article…
Fresh from touring their radical Hamlet: The Clown Prince into the Hackney Empire, the Company Theatre return to London with a new interpretation of Twelfth Night for the Globe. Atul Kumar, their artistic director, is trained in the traditional Indian dance and martial art forms of Kathakali and Kalerippayattu, and is delighted to return to Full Article…
This momentous occasion will be the National Theatre of China’s first visit to the UK. The company, which stages work in three different performance spaces in Beijing, works with the finest playwrights and directors in China. Their trailblazing productions show the new face of 21st century Chinese theatre. This production of Shakespeare’s wicked horror-show of Full Article…
Yohangza means ‘voyager’, and this groundbreaking company has travelled all over the world since its inception in 1997. Their performance combines music, mime, song and dance to create an exhilarating adaptation of Shakespeare’s inventive and glittering comedy. Focusing on the story of the four mortal lovers and the spirits of the east Asian forest, Shakespeare’s Full Article…
Where else but from Rome for Julius Caesar? In a sparse new translation by prizewinning playwright Vincenzo Manna, Andrea Barraco’s Julius Caesar is set in a dreamlike yet contemporary Rome. The production opened in the ancient, haunting theatre in Gualtieri in the north of Italy, and will perform at the prestigious Teatro di Roma prior Full Article…
In July 2011, after more than 50 years of violent struggle, the Republic of South Sudan became the world’s newest country. The South Sudan Theatre Company’s Cymbeline, the first ever adaptation of Shakespeare into Juba Arabic, draws on the performance traditions of the horn of Africa. Led by the renowned writer Taban Lo Liyong, the Full Article…
The hybrid culture of Hong Kong informs this production of Shakespeare’s grisliest play from the eminent Hong Kong director’s outstanding and groundbreaking troupe. Described as the ‘alchemist of minimalist theatre’, Tang Shu-wing works with simple staging, voice and movement, to release the energies of classic texts. His ensemble has toured to Singapore and the US, Full Article…
Ashtar is a dynamic Palestinian theatre company with a global perspective, founded in Jerusalem in 1991. In 2010 the group performed The Gaza Monologues, a series of stories told by the young people of Gaza – an unprecedented theatrical project involving thousands of people and 44 theatre groups from around the world. This vital theatre Full Article…
A fresh urban take on Shakespeare’s tragedy spun out, smashed up and lyrically rewritten over original beats. The Q Brothers are America’s leading re-interpreters of Shakespeare through hip hop. They return to London following their award-winning international tours of Bombitty of Errors and Funk It Up About Nothin’. The CST is dedicated to creating and Full Article…
From a land constantly troubled by water, enter Shakespeare’s mariners, wet and speaking Bangla. As well as pioneering new Bangladeshi drama, the Dhaka Theatre, Bangladesh’s most prominent theatre group, has staged The Merchant of Venice and Brecht’s The Resistable Rise of Arturo Ui. Often called Bengali, Bangla is one of London’s most widely spoken languages. Playing Full Article…
Macbeth is a hero. He and his friend Banquo, returning from battle, are met by three Witches who prophesy that Macbeth will become King. Macbeth confides in his wife and together they plot to murder King Duncan while he is sleeping in Macbeth’s castle. As Macbeth’s guilt and paranoia about his power grows, his acts Full Article…
A two-man Zimbabwean riot of love, friendship and betrayal. From Verona to Milan, via Harare and Bulawayo, two great friends, Valentine and Proteus, vie for the love of the same woman. In a triumphantly energetic ‘township’ style, Denton Chikura and Tonderai Munyevu slip into all of the play’s fifteen characters – from amorous suitors to Full Article…
Nikita Milivojevic has directed in Sweden, the USA, and Greece and is the former Artistic Director of the celebrated BITEF festival – the most significant cultural forum in modern Serbia. He makes his debut in the UK with this thrilling drama of political scheming and military heroics. Playing at The Globe, London.
Since the early days of the new republic, the National Theatre of Albania has opened its repertoire to foreign plays, and experimented with forbidden authors. In the past twenty years they have performed plays from Albania and elsewhere to wide acclaim. Director Adonis Filipi will direct Shakespeare’s great meditation on riot and rebellion. Playing at The Full Article…
The third part of the Balkan trilogy is infused with live music, as traditional Macedonian songs punctuate the bloody action. This grand drama of civil war is given new life for the Globe by the National Theatre of Bitola, who staged the first play in the Macedonian language following the liberation of the country from Full Article…
Created in 1977, the National Theatre is one of Mexico’s leading cultural institutions. Under Artistic Director Luis de Tavira, the company stages classics, new Mexican plays and contemporary drama from around the world. This new production of Shakespeare’s great dramatisation of madness in the land and mayhem in the pub, is directed by the electrifying Full Article…
Ruben Szuchmacher, one of Argentina’s most influential and controversial directors, brings a new production of this elegiac and funny masterpiece. A celebrated defender of the theatre’s freedom from the state, his work combines the richness of Shakespeare’s texts with a simple theatrical aesthetic. His approach has won him great acclaim as one of the most Full Article…
Shakespeare has always had a strong influence in the Caucasus, and nowhere more powerfully than in Armenia. Poets, playwrights, actors and audiences have all lived and worked within his generous shade, and he has proven an enduring symbol of freedom in times of oppression. Many great actors and directors have emerged from Armenia to go Full Article…
Belarus Free Theatre was founded in March 2005 by husband and wife team Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada, and joined by Vladimir Scherban. Their performances in Belarus are held secretly, in small private apartments, the location of which, due to the risk of persecution, must constantly be changed. Despite suffering every form of intimidation and Full Article…
One of the most revered theatres in Georgia, itself one of the world’s great theatre cultures, the Marjanishvili, founded in 1928, appears regularly at theatre festivals all over the world. This new production of As You Like It is helmed by the company’s Artistic Director Levan Tsuladze (founder of the Basement Theatre in Tbilisi), known Full Article…
Perhaps the Americas’ most famous production of the most famous play ever, Grupo Galpão’s carnivalesque Romeo and Juliet returns to the Globe with its thrilling mix of circus, music, dance and Brazilian folk culture. The only festival participants to have played at Shakespeare’s Globe before, they bring the promise of a cavalcade of passion. Playing at Full Article…
This renowned company from Kyoto works under the direction of one of Japan’s most imaginative artists, Motoi Miura. Known for its minimalist vision, this company produces an expressive theatre rooted in the exploration of words, sound and the human body. Celebrated for their work on Chekhov, which has proved highly successful in Russia, they are Full Article…
By translating the rich, pun-riddled text of Love’s Labour’s Lost into the physical language of BSL, Deafinitely Theatre create a new interpretation of Shakespeare’s comedy, accessible to theatre goers of all backgrounds. Deafinitely, who have worked at the Soho Theatre and the Tricycle Theatre, aim to build a bridge between deaf and hearing worlds by Full Article…
Arpana mix live music, dance and acting in the style of the Bhangwadi theatre that originally catered for an audience of daily wage labourers in the 19th century. Since 1985 the company has staged many productions in Mumbai and across India, in a range of spaces including school yards, restaurants and public gardens. This bittersweet Full Article…
The Renegade Theatre initiated the Theatre@Terra project in 2007, where plays were produced twice every Sunday in Lagos without interruption for three-and-a-half years – a feat unparalleled in modern Nigeria. The company’s patron is the Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka. Yoruba folk tales inform this magical new production where Leontes becomes Sango, the God of Thunder, Full Article…
Theatre Wallay – KASHF presents a new production of The Taming of the Shrew, starring the Lahore screen and stage star Nadia Jamil as Katherine. Rich in colour and energy, the production explores the difficulties encountered by modern Pakistani women. With live singers and musicians, a thrilling bhangra jig rounds off this uplifting version of Full Article…
In 1999, Haluk Bilginer, an Istanbul star of stage and screen, built the pioneering Oyun Atölyesi. It has since become the leading light of the Turkish theatre scene, staging a thrilling and diverse programme, including Timon of Athens, Macbeth and Othello. Haluk returns to the UK as Antony in this new production, which also features Full Article…
The Habima is the centre of Hebrew-language theatre worldwide. Founded in Moscow after the 1905 revolution, the company toured the world before eventually settling in Tel Aviv in the late 1920s. Since 1958, they have been recognised as the national theatre of Israel. This production, of one of Shakespeare’s most controversial and most human plays, Full Article…
In 1533, the Spanish were enraged by Catherine of Aragon’s divorce from Henry VIII. Eighty years later, Shakespeare engaged with the subject in his last play. Now four hundred years later, Rakata, Madrid’s premier young classical company, re-imagine this play from a Spanish perspective, with the thrilling clarity they bring to their productions of Spanish Full Article…
Roy-e-Sabs is a theatrical miracle. In 2005, the group performed Love’s Labour’s Lost in an ancient garden in war-ravaged Kabul, close to where the founder of the Mughal Empire lies buried. The controversial production saw men and women acting together, the women occasionally not wearing headscarves, and lovers holding hands – truly audacious things to Full Article…
In 1993 bremer shakespeare company performed The Merry Wives of Windsor on the building site of the Globe Theatre. They have staged over 40 Shakespeare productions in their home on the western bank of the Weser in Bremen, and have toured throughout Europe and Asia. Nineteen years after The Merry Wives, they return with a Full Article…
In the Cartoucherie de Vincennes outside Paris, sits a bold and enterprising venue, the Théâtre de la Tempête. Clément Poirée’s Hypermobile company are one of the principal groups who give this theatre its impressive reputation. Poirée’s new production, running at la Tempête in winter 2011, is a bittersweet take on Much Ado About Nothing, set Full Article…
Legendary Lithuanian director Eimuntas Nekrosius’ Hamlet is one of the most celebrated Shakespearean productions of our age. It has toured the world and is now coming to London for the first time. Nekrosius’ work, universally regarded as a new chapter in theatre history, engages with the sheer diversity of human nature, at once funny and Full Article…
The Globe to Globe festival closes with a production of Shakespeare’s spine-tingling masterpiece of the turbulence of war, and the art of peace. The play which opened both the first and the new Globe with the words ‘O, for a Muse of fire…’ celebrates the power of English, or any other language, to summon into Full Article…
On 22 April The Globe opened its doors for a free open day. 29 performers recited Shakespeare’s sonnets in over 30 different languages whilst an international food market tempted the tastebuds. Playing at The Globe, London.
Shakespeare’s joyful comedy of mistaken identity follows the fortunes of two sets of identical twins, accidentally separated at birth, then miraculously thrown together again. In a town the size of Ephesus, events like these can only lead to confusion. Directed by Amir Nizar Zuabi, The Comedy of Errors plays in the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Full Article…
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Prospero is usurped from his position as Duke of Milan and cast away with his daughter to a remote island. Twelve years later, and intent on revenge, he raises a magical tempest that shipwrecks his enemies on his shores. What begins as a search for retribution develops into a journey of acceptance and compassion in Full Article…
Shipwrecked on the shores of a strange land, Viola believes her twin brother Sebastian drowned. Disguising herself as a boy to work in the court of Count Orsino, she finds herself a go-between for the man she serves and the woman who refuses to love him. Directed by David Farr, Twelfth Night plays in the Full Article…
Written for ages 11+, I,Cinna (The Poet) is Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar told through the eyes of a jiggling fool. Cinna asks the young audience to consider the relationship between words and actions, art and politics, self and society. During the performance he will ask students to write poems with him: small poems on big themes. Full Article…
The dictator must be assassinated. But who will replace him? Shakespeare’s great political thriller, Julius Caesar, finds dark, contemporary echoes in modern Africa, directed by RSC Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran. Gregory’s most recent productions include Shakespeare’s ‘lost play’ Cardenio, re-imagined as part of the RSC’s 50th birthday celebrations, as well as his 2008 production Full Article…
King John’s claim to the throne is challenged by France, which threatens war unless he steps aside in favour of his nephew, Arthur. A bitter, political struggle ensues as a weakened King clings to power, no matter what the cost. Maria Aberg has directed for the Royal Court, RSC, Soho Theatre and Southwark Playhouse. Her Full Article…
This vibrant and colourful production transposes Shakespeare’s vivacious, and at times unsettling, comedy of love and deceit to an Indian setting. Much Ado About Nothing is directed by Iqbal Khan whose credits include Broken Glass (Tricycle Theatre, 2011) and The Killing of Sister George (Arts Theatre, 2011). Actress, comedienne, writer and singer, Meera Syal, will Full Article…
Power-hungry Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots, manipulates and murders his way to the throne in Shakespeare’s brilliant expose of this infamous monarch. Roxana Silbert directs a company of actors, who will also perform A Soldier In Every Son – An Aztec Trilogy. Formerly Artistic Director of Paines Plough Theatre Company, she is Artistic Director (Designate) Full Article…
Baghdad’s Iraqi Theatre Company create a version of Romeo and Juliet for a new generation, infused with Iraq’s rich traditions of poetry, music and ritual. This iconic play finds fresh purchase in the soil of contemporary Iraq, a country where sectarian strife between Sunni and Shia, ignited and fuelled from outside, has left the population Full Article…
Late 14th century in the Valley of Mexico and a small, unknown tribe called the Aztecs propel themselves from nomadic mercenaries to rulers of a great empire. Passion, power and intrigue play out in this epic political thriller which charts the history of an ancient civilisation. Spanning a century and based on true events chronicled Full Article…
Ben Power weaves together the words of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in a touching story of two lovers. Familiar lines echo through a story that celebrates the timelessness of Shakespeare’s language, in a beautiful and heartbreaking world where hope triumphs over all. Kathryn Hunter revisits the role with director Helena Kaut-Howson that she created for Full Article…