Bell Shakespeare: Season 2016
Bell Shakespeare, Australia’s national theatre company dedicated to the sharing of the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries with Australian audiences, has unveiled it’s 2016 program, the first under the sole Artistic Directorship of Peter Evans (pictured left, photographer Tony Davison).
Peter Evans said, “I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with one of the greatest Shakespearean minds as Co-Artistic Director for the last 4 years; John Bell. As founder of Bell Shakespeare his legacy is a tribute to performance of classical texts in Australia. It’s with much anticipation that I take up the mantle of Artistic Director for Bell Shakespeare, and all that entails. I look forward to taking audiences of all ages, from all corners of Australia on a journey through Shakespeare’s timeless world with us.”
The 2016 program will feature a collection of plays that delve into love, despair and the foibles of humanity.
Romeo And Juliet will open the year, exploring the violence and heartache in the legendary tale of the star-crossed lovers set against a once lavish city. Kelly Paterniti returns to Bell Shakespeare after 2015’s As You Like It as the wide-eyed ingénue Juliet, paired with Alex Williams (Underground: The Julian Assange Story, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart) in the role of Romeo.
Ten years after penning Romeo And Juliet, Shakespeare wrote Othello, a starkly contrasting play that explores the destructive power of jealousy and whispered rumours. Othellois a journey of malicious passion, fuelled by one of Shakespeare’s ultimate villains, the conniving Iago. Starring Ray Chong Nee as Othello (Bell Shakespeare’s The Dream and MTC’s I Call My Brothers) and Yalin Ozucelik as Iago (Bell Shakespeare’s Henry IV and STC’s Cyrano de Bergerac),this epic tragedy will be performed across Australia for Bell Shakespeare’s 2016 National Tour.
Bell Shakespeare will return to the work of Molière - France’s answer to Shakespeare. In a new partnership, Griffin Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare will present The Literati, a new translation of La Femme Savants by Justin Fleming. Directed by Griffin’s Artistic Director Lee Lewis and featuring Bell Shakespeare’s Writing Fellow and frequent collaborator, Kate Mulvany (Tartuffe and Julius Caesar) The Literati will see the text brought screaming into the 21st century with its cutting satire of the high-brow elite.
Romeo And Juliet and Othello will be accompanied by a free In Conversation with the director hosting a number of the cast and creative team, offering audiences a peek behind the curtain for unique and illuminating insights on the productions.
2016 will also herald a renewed commitment to Bell Shakespeare’s learning programmes, bringing the works to students in classrooms and theatres across the country. A new team of eight actors will tour the country in the 10 month Actors At Work tour taking 50-minute adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays to students in every state, including regional and remote communities. Students in Sydney, Melbourne and, for the first time Perth, will have the opportunity to visit their city’s premier theatres for a restaging of the 2013 and 2014 success, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by James Evans.
ROMEO AND JULIET
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE: 20 February – 27 March
CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE: 1 - 9 April
ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE: 14 April– 1 May
Director Peter Evans
Designer Anna Cordingley
Composer & Sound Designer Kelly Ryall
Fight & Movement Director Nigel Poulton
With Michelle Doake, Michael Gupta, Angie Milliken, Kelly Paterniti, Hazem Shammas, Tom Stokes, Damien Strouthos, Jacob Warner, Alex Williams
Romeo And Juliet is the classic tale of forbidden love blooming in the rubble of an unending battle. A tale of a chance meeting, love at first sight, the passion of youth and ancient feuds spilling blood.
Peter Evans said, “It’s not an accident that my first programme as Artistic Director for Bell Shakespeare I chose one of Shakespeare’s most evocative romantic tragedies, Romeo And Juliet. One of Shakespeare’s greatest virtues is that he allows us to wear our emotion on our sleeve. He provides us with the timeless poetry that pierces through the silence of modern manners.”
THE LITERARI
SBW STABLES THEATRE: 27 May - 1 June
By Justin Fleming after Molière’s Les Femmes Savantes
Director Lee Lewis
With Kate Mulvany
Juliet and Clinton are in love. Guileless, sweet, all-encompassing love. But love is not without impediments. Standing in the way of their eternal happiness are Juliet’s mother and sister, whose disapproval is of the most high-brow kind.
The Literati will see the text placed firmly in modern day Sydney
OTHELLO
ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE: 12 – 23 July
CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE: 14 - 22 October
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE: 25 October – 4 December
Director Peter Evans
Designer Michael Hankin
Lighting Designer Paul Jackson
Assistant Director & Fight Director Nigel Poulton
With Ray Chong Nee, Joanna Downing, Alice Keohavong, James Lugton, Huw McKinnon, Elizabeth Nabben, Yalin Ozucelik, Michael Wahr
The triumphant general Othello returns from battle with the gratitude of the state – and the love of Desdemona - who defies social convention and her father’s will to marry him. Jealousies around their match and Othello’s rise to prominence simmer to the surface, causing destructive rifts in a story that piles secret upon secret, and betrayal upon betrayal.
Othello’s ensign, Iago, harbours a deeply held resentment and the marriage is fatally undermined by the insinuations of a master manipulator.
Othello is a saga that probes the human capacity for petty jealousies and revenge while revelling in the sheer wickedness of malicious manipulations.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE: 1 – 19 August
ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE: 23 – 26 August
OCTAGON THEATRE, PERTH: 7 – 9 September
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