The Northern Lords which have forsworn thy colours will follow mine…
The much-anticipated £38m Shakespeare North Playhouse has now opened its doors in Prescot, Merseyside. Based on the Cockpit-in-Court, first built for Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn in 1533 on a site just behind present-day Downing Street, and later used for staging plays until its destruction in the 1670s, the new Prescot theatre is oak-framed, galleried and roofed, with a blue ceiling, and descending chandeliers to facilitate candlelit performances.
First conceived as an idea in the 1990s, the project has overcome many financial setbacks through the persistence of its instigator the architect Nick Helm and his collaborators academic Richard Wilson and director David Thacker. The original idea was to create a theatre in the grounds of Hoghton Tower, a fortified manor house in another part of Lancashire, where an oral tradition holds that Bard may have spent some of his teenage years.
When this plan failed, a new idea arose, to build in Prescot, which may have been home to the first purpose-built indoor theatre in the 1590s, and now this idea has come to fruition. A wooden octagon with 470 seats, the interior is based on drawings of the Cockpit by a pupil of Inigo Jones, John Webb. While built ‘historically’ by the team behind the Globe with no screws or glue used in construction, like Shakespeare's Globe, the theatre does benefit from modern technological advances, and promises a varied programme. It's possible for it to be configured in the round, and the opening programme features A Midsummer Night's Dream but also Johnny Vegas and Jimmy McGovern.
It has also been reported that the theatre hopes to emulate some of the atmosphere of the Elizabethan theatre and its rather more rowdy audiences, with a relaxed, informal approach and no frowning on people walking in and out.
shakespearenorthplayhouse.co.uk
O brave new world, which has such people in it…
Shakespeare's Globe has announced the return of Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank for its 17th year in 2023, with a special schools’ production of The Tempest in the Globe Theatre. The dynamic 90-minute production will be created especially for young people and designed to support the curriculum.
Schools performances will run from 2-30 March 2023 with over 26,000 free tickets available for pupils aged 11–16 in London and Birmingham state secondary schools, and subsidised tickets available for all other schools nationwide.
Applications for tickets, and accompanying student workshops and CPD, open from 1 September 2022.
www.shakespearesglobe.com/learn/secondary-schools/playing-shakespeare-with-deutsche-bank/
Is all our company here?…
Midsummer Mechanicals, the Globe's first full-scale production for families and young people, runs until 21 August at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. A co-production with schools’ favourite Splendid Productions, written by Kerry Frampton and Ben Hales and directed by Lucy Cuthbertson and Kerry Frampton, the production follows Peter Quince's troupe of actors as they tried to recapture the success of their first hit show, Pyramus and Thisbe.
While it's nearly at the end of its run already, I hope perhaps this production may have a future life, as it's a fantastic concept and the sort of idea which would make a good devising stimulus for students.
But I do love thee; and when I love thee not, Chaos is come again…
Frantic Assembly's acclaimed production of Othello, set in a pub, and studied by Key Stage 5 students across the land, is to return with a tour this autumn, opening at Curve Theatre Leicester on 19 September.
Five members of the Othello cast and creative team are past graduates of Frantic Assembly's Ignition programme: Associate Director David Gilbert, Co-Choreographer Perry Johnson, Joe Layton (Iago), Oliver Baines (Montano) and Felipe Pacheco (Roderigo). Ignition is a free, nationwide talent development programme for young people aged 16–24 which seeks out underrepresented talent in unexpected places, ‘playing a vital role in dismantling barriers that can prevent fresh perspectives from revitalising the Arts’.
Originally presented in 2008 and 2014, this updated version in co-production with Curve will go on to tour to Liverpool Playhouse, Theatre Royal Plymouth, Theatre Royal York, Yvonne Arnaud Guildford, Oxford Playhouse, The Lowry Salford Quays, MAST Mayflower Studios Southampton, Connaught Theatre Worthing, and the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre London.
Frantic Assembly's other current and upcoming work includes Frantic Assembly STUDIO, an innovative new digital resource platform for teaching drama in secondary schools featured in depth in D&T's Summer 2 issue. A new take on Kafka's Metamorphosis will premiere and tour in 2023.