Shakespeare's Globe

Talent, Battlefields Lined Up for 2013

Public booking has opened for the 2013 "Season of Plenty" at Shakespeare's Globe in London. The theater has also firmed up some of the artistic talent on display this year.

Opening the season on April 23 , Roger Allam will return to the Globe as Prospero in Jeremy Herrin's production of The Tempest. Allam won the Best Actor Olivier Award for his portrayal of Falstaff at the Globe in Henry IV, Parts 1 and 2. Making his Globe debut will be Colin Morgan as Ariel, who created the role of Merlin in the popular BBC television series for which he recently won Best Actor in a Drama at the National Television Awards. Jessie Buckley, who competed in the TV casting for a new Nancy, I'd Do Anything, will play Miranda. Director Jeremy Herrin returns to the Globe following his widely applauded production of Much Ado About Nothing in 2011.

A Midsummer Night's Dream will be directed by the Globe's artistic director, Dominic Dromgoole. Michelle Terry, winner of the 2011 Olivier Award for Tribes at the Royal Court, and last at the Globe in Love's Labour's Lost, returns as Titania. Macbeth concludes the season's trio of supernatural Shakespeares, and the Globe has invited stage and screen actress Eve Best to make her directorial debut with Joseph Millson (Rocket to the Moon at the National and Much Ado at the Royal Shakespeare Company) in the title role. Two-time Olivier Award-winning Samantha Spiro, who played Katherina in last year's Taming of the Shrew at the Globe, has been cast as Lady Macbeth.

Opening at York Theatre Royal in June, the Globe will tour Shakespeare's three Henry VI plays, not only visiting theaters but battlefields across the UK. Site-specific performances of Harry the Sixth, The Houses of York and Lancaster and The True Tragedy of the Duke of York will be staged at the historic battle sites of the Wars of the Roses—Towton, Tewkesbury, St Albans, and Barnet—during its run at the Globe. Nick Bagnall directs.

The Globe's award-winning UK and international small-scale tours, which have become annual fixtures of the summer's theatrical calendar, will once again set off to new destinations. King Lear, directed by Bill Buckhurst, will be the Globe's first tour into Istanbul, and an all-female cast of The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Joe Murphy, will travel to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Beijing following visits to many venues across the UK.  Joseph Marcell, best known asGeoffrey in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and last at the Globe in Much Ado About Nothing, will play Lear. Joining him as Gloucester is the New Zealand stage and screen actor Rawiri Paratene, star of Whale Rider, who performed in the Maori Troilus and Cressida which opened the Globe to Globe program last year.

The ambition of the Globe to Globe festival lives on, as Shakespeare's Globe welcomes back the Isango Ensemble from South Africa with its joyous Venus and Adonis; Georgia's Marjanishvili Theatre return with As You Like It; and the world's bravest theatre company, Belarus Free Theatre, brings back its provocative production of King Lear. Completing the international schedule is Footsbarn, who return to the Globe with its carnival mix of street theatre, circus, and mime in Indian Tempest.

The Globe also will present three world premières in 2013. Gabriel, an unprecedented musical and theatrical event, will unite one of the world's finest trumpet soloists, Alison Balsom, award-winning writer Samuel Adamson, and director Dromgoole, with Trevor Pinnock as musical consultant. Featuring Purcell and Handel played by The English Concert, the play brings to life real and imagined characters, including Mary II and Queen Anne, as well as the composers, musicians, and patrons of a vibrant and musical 17th century London.

Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale is the director's debut play, telling the eye-opening story of the first female students at Cambridge University and the prejudice they faced at the turn of the 20th century. Globe regular John Dove directs. Closing the season will be Ché Walker's anarchic take on Euripides' The Bacchae, The Lightning Child, directed by Matthew Dunster with songs by Arthur Darvill, the creative team behind The Frontline at the Globe.

Tickets are available through the box office: 020-7401-9919 or online www.shakespearesglobe.com. Up to 700 £5 tickets are available for every performance.

February 26, 2013

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