Shakespeare’s Globe has announced Dominic Dromgoole’s final season as Artistic Director. For the first time, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will host Shakespeare as part of the main season. Pericles, Cymbeline, The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest will play in the candlelit indoor theatre between November 2015 and April 2016. Multi award-winning actress Eileen Atkins will also return with her critically-acclaimed Ellen Terry with Eileen Atkins in January and February 2016.
These four plays, written by Shakespeare to exploit the potential of the Blackfriars, the indoor playhouse his company made their winter home in 1609, share a host of thematic links and a delight in using the technical and imaginative possibilities of the indoor theatres.
Opening the season of candlelit Shakespeares on 19 November, Pericles sets out an adventurous tale of the heroic Pericles’ escape from assassination on discovering incest at the heart of the Kingdom of Antioch. Pericles harks back to some of Shakespeare’s earlier work, with a plot fuelled by mistaken identity and families fragmented by shipwrecks.
From 2 December, Cymbeline charts the virtuous Imogen, daughter of the British king Cymbeline, journeying from England to Wales disguised as a boy, in search of her lowborn and exiled husband, Posthumus. The eclectic plot sees Imogen’s struggle to maintain integrity throughout the play to its eventual romantic resolution.
Running from 28 January to 22 April, The Winter’s Tale tells of how King Leontes loses his wife and newborn daughter through his furious yet baseless jealousy. A long journey through time and across borders eventually effects an astonishing and redemptive resolution. Boasting the most famous stage direction in history, ‘Exit, pursued by a bear’, this is one of Shakespeare’s most imaginative, troubling and delightful plays.
The Tempest will be directed by Dominic Dromgoole. Running from 17 February, it will be his final production as Artistic Director.
Image of Dominic Dromgoole by Shelia Burnett
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