Download /cont/c[front page logo] Shakespeare`s Globe announces full

Shakespeare’s Globe announces full programme for Globe to Globe
Embargoed until 00.01 Tuesday 27 September 2011
For the first time, 37 international companies present all 37 of Shakespeare’s
plays in 37 different languages
An athletic ticket pricing scheme including the chance to see all shows for just
£100
A kaleidoscopic six weeks of shows starting on Shakespeare’s birthday April
23rd
An opening weekend of celebrations including: an adaptation of Venus and
Adonis by the Isango Ensemble from South Africa, a public open day at the
Globe to celebrate Shakespeare and the worlds’ languages, and Ngākau Toa’s
Troilus and Cressida beginning the festival with a haka.
Artistic Director of Shakespeare‘s Globe Dominic Dromgoole today announced full details of the
programme for the eagerly anticipated Globe to Globe season.
In an extraordinary array of productions, full details of which are enclosed in this pack or on
request, Globe to Globe highlights include:
From the world‘s youngest country, South Sudan, a specially formed theatre company will
present their take on Cymbeline. After 50 years of civil war, in the spring of this year South
Sudan was finally recognised as an independent country. Out of the horrific troubles suffered by
this country‘s people, the first signs of hope for the future are springing and this production
marks an historic step for the country‘s future.
A new Balkan Trilogy – Henry VI. The three electrifying Henry VI plays about England‘s first
great civil war are presented as an epic and sweeping Balkan trilogy, featuring national theatres
from Serbia, Albania and Macedonia.
For the first time ever a Shakespeare play will be performed in its entirety in British Sign
Language. Deafinitely Theatre from London will translate the pun-riddled comedic text of
Love’s Labour’s Lost into British Sign Language.
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From Lithuania comes one of the greatest productions of Hamlet in modern times. Legendary
director Eimuntas Nekrošius brings his seminal version to London for the first time.
The Merchant of Venice will be presented by Israeli National Theatre company Habima in
Hebrew in their first ever visit to the United Kingdom.
Featuring the haka, waiata and many other aspects of Maori culture, a production of Troilus
and Cressida from New Zealand has been put together by Rawiri Paratene, star of Whale
Rider.
In another first, the National Theatre of China will perform Shakespeare‘s horror show of
power and paranoia, Richard III. The company has not visited the UK before and its trailblazing
productions represent the new face of Chinese theatre.
The Isango Ensemble from South Africa are well known to UK audiences following their
acclaimed productions The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso and The Magic Flute, will perform a
stage adaptation of Venus and Adonis as part of an opening weekend of celebrations.
The world‘s bravest theatre company Belarus Free Theatre will present King Lear. The
company has attracted worldwide support for its work which it does in spite of the threat of state
persecution.
From Ramallah in Palestine comes the Ashtar Theatre. Renowned for its direct storytelling
style this remarkable theatre company will present its interpretation of Shakespeare‘s
masterpiece of dislocation, Richard II.
And from Afghanistan comes an extraordinary theatre company whose work is a living triumph
against adversity. Roy-e-Sabs will leave Kabul for the first time, to bring a production of The
Comedy of Errors to Shakespeare‘s Globe. This company‘s determination to perform and
rehearse is a genuinely audacious stand against the strictures of life in Afghanistan.
Tickets start at just £5, and a series of multibuy schemes are in place, including the Yard
Olympian which will allow you to see all 38 productions for just £100. Full details can be found
at the end of this pack.
The World Shakespeare Festival and Globe to Globe is funded by the National Lottery through
the Olympic Lottery Distributor.
For further information on Globe to Globe please contact Stephen Pidcock or Charlotte Bayley
at The Corner Shop PR on 020 7494 3665 [email protected] /
[email protected]
-ENDS-
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NOTES TO EDITORS:
About Shakespeare’s Globe
Founded by the pioneering American actor and director Sam Wanamaker, Shakespeare’s Globe is a unique international
resource dedicated to the exploration of Shakespeare’s work and the playhouse for which he wrote, through the connected
means of performance and education. Together, the Globe Theatre, Globe Exhibition and Tour and Globe Education seek to
further the experience and international understanding of Shakespeare in performance.
The Shakespeare Globe Trust is a registered charity No.266916. Shakespeare’s Globe receives no ongoing public subsidy
The World Shakespeare Festival is a celebration of Shakespeare as the world’s playwright, produced by the Royal Shakespeare
Company, in an unprecedented collaboration with leading UK and international arts organisations, and with Globe to Globe, a
major international programme produced by Shakespeare’s Globe. It runs from 23 April to November 2012 and forms part of
London 2012 Festival, which is the culmination of the Cultural Olympiad, bringing leading artists from all over the world
together in a UK-wide festival in the summer of 2012.
The World Shakespeare Festival and Globe to Globe is funded by the National Lottery through the Olympic Lottery Distributor.
About the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival
The London 2012 Cultural Olympiad is the largest cultural celebration in the history of the modern Olympic and Paralympic
Movements. Spread over four years, it is designed to give everyone in the UK a chance to be part of London 2012 and inspire
creativity across all forms of culture, especially among young people.
The culmination of the Cultural Olympiad will be the London 2012 Festival, bringing leading artists from all over the world
together from 21 June 2012 in this UK-wide festival – a chance for everyone to celebrate London 2012 through dance, music,
theatre, the visual arts, fashion, film and digital innovation.
Principal funders of the Cultural Olympiad and London 2012 Festival are Arts Council England, Legacy Trust UK and the Olympic
Lottery Distributor. BP and BT are Premier Partners of the Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Festival.
For more details visit www.london2012.com/festival
This pack is available electronically on request and images can be downloaded from http://www.globe-images.org/
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Isango Ensemble presents
Venus & Adonis
From Cape Town, South Africa
Performed in IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SeSotho, Setswana, Afrikaans, South African English
Saturday 21 April 2.30pm & 7.30pm
Sunday 22 April 6.30pm
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 with song and dance, to
Shakespeare‘s great story of seduction and loss of innocence.
Isango Ensemble is an internationally renowned South African theatre company that draws its artists from
the townships around Cape Town. Its stage productions and films have played to sold out audiences
across the world, and it has received numerous international awards. Isango‘s productions re-imagine
classics from the Western theatre canon, finding a new context for the stories within a South African or
Township setting, thereby creating inventive work relevant to the heritage of the nation.
The Company‘s structure embraces artists at all stages of their creative development, allowing senior
artists to lead and contribute towards the growth of rising talents. We are committed to creating theatre
that is accessible to all South Africans and to contributing to a more united South African nation.
Isango‘s award winning film u-Carmen eKhayelitsha and our second film Son of Man were filmed on a
location in Khayelitsha and propelled this historically disadvantaged township into the international
spotlight.
According to 2001 census data, there were almost four million first language Sotho speakers recorded in
South Africa — approximately eight per cent of the population. Sotho is also the main language spoken
by the people of Lesotho, where, according to 1993 data, it was spoken by about 1,493,000 people, or
85% of the population. Sotho is one of the eleven official languages of South Africa, and one of the two
official languages of Lesotho.
Zulu is the language of the Zulu people with about 10 million speakers, the vast majority (over 95%) of
whom live in South Africa. Zulu is the most widely spoken home language in South Africa (24% of the
population) as well as being understood by over 50% of the population (Ethnologue 2005). It became one
of South Africa's eleven official languages in 1994.
Xhosa is one of the official languages of South Africa. Xhosa is spoken by approximately 7.9 million
people, or about 18% of the South African population. Like most Bantu languages, Xhosa is a tonal
language, that is, the same sequence of consonants and vowels can have different meanings when said
with a rising or falling or high or low intonation. One of the most distinctive features of the language is the
prominence of click consonants; the word "Xhosa" begins with a click.
Tswana or Setswana is a language spoken in Southern Africa by about 4.5 million people. Tswana is an
official language and lingua franca of Botswana spoken by almost 1.1 million of its inhabitants. However,
the majority of Tswana speakers are found in South Africa where 3.4 million people speak the language.
Afrikaans is a West Germanic language, spoken natively in South Africa and Namibia. It is a daughter
language of Dutch originating in its 17th century dialects collectively referred to as Cape Dutch.
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The term South African English is applied to the first-language dialects of English spoken by South
Africans.
Page 5 of 49
Ngākau Toa presents
Troilus and Cressida
From Auckland, Aotearoa (New Zealand)
Performed in Māori
Monday 23rd April 7.30pm
Tuesday 24th April 7.30pm
Star of the film Whale Rider, Rawiri Paratene will play Pandarus in this unique Maori translation of Troilus
and Cressida.
Supported by a 14-strong ensemble cast of the best Māori actors, and featuring a haka (warrior dance)
and waiata (song) created especially for the production by some of New Zealand‘s leading
choreographers and composers, this production marks Ngākau Toa‘s debut performance in the UK.
Shakespeare‘s text will be performed in a sparkling new translation by Te Haumiata Mason.
Troilus and Cressida will tour in Aotearoa prior to its run at Shakespeare‘s Globe; it will travel to the UK
straight from the company‘s home in Auckland, and will be a highlight of the 2012 International Arts
Festival in the capital, Wellington.
The first Māori actor to perform in the summer season at Shakespeare‘s Globe, as Friar Lawrence in the
2009 production of Romeo and Juliet, Rawiri Paratene will return to the theatre to take the part of
Pandarus. He will also co-produce. Perhaps best known for his role as Koro (the Grandfather) in Whale
Rider, Paratene has enjoyed a varied career as an actor, writer, director and producer in theatre,
television, radio and film.
Māori is the language of the indigenous population of New Zealand, the Māori and has the status of an
official language in New Zealand. Whilst only a minority of self-professed speakers use Māori as their
main language in the home, Māori is still a community language in some predominantly-Māori settlements
in the Northland, Urewera and East Cape areas.
Urbanisation after the Second World War led to widespread language shift from Māori predominance
(with Māori the primary language of the rural whānau) to English predominance (English serving as the
primary language in the Pākehā cities). Therefore Māori-speakers almost always communicate bilingually,
with New Zealand English as either their first or second language.
The percentage prevalence of the Māori language in the Māori diaspora is far lower than in New Zealand.
Census data from Australia show it as the home language of 5,504 people in 2001, or 7.5% of the Māori
community in Australia. This represents an increase of 32.5% since 1996.
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Vakhtangov Theatre presents
Measure for Measure
From Moscow, Russia
Performed in Russian
Tuesday 24 April 2.30pm
Wednesday 25 April 7.30pm
The Vakhtangov Theatre, 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 many of Russia‘s most respected
productions. This is their first visit to the UK.
Yevgeny Bagrationovich Vakhtangov was born to Armenian-Russian parents from Ossetia. He was
educated at Moscow State University for a short time and then joined the Moscow Art Theatre in 1911.
He rose through the ranks, so that by 1920 he was in charge of his own theatre studio. Four years after
his death, the studio was named the Vakhtangov Theatre in his honour.
Vakhtangov was greatly influenced both by the theatrical experiments of Vsevolod Meyerhold and the
more psychological techniques of his teacher, Konstantin Stanilavsky His productions incorporated
masks, music, dance, abstract costume, avant-garde sets as well as a detailed analysis of the texts of
plays and the psychological motivations of its characters. His most notable production
was Turandot by Carlo Gozzi, which has played at the Vakhtangov Theatre ever since 1922 (the year of
his death). Another famous production directed by Vakhtangov in the same year was S. Ansky's The
Dybbuk with the Habima theatre troupe, who feature alongside the Vakhtangov at Globe to Globe.
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.
It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine,
Moldova, Latvia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that
were once constituent republics of the USSR.
Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three living members of the East
Slavic languages. Written examples of Old East Slavonic are attested from the 10th century onwards.
It is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic
languages. It is also the largest native language in Europe, with 160 million native speakers
in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. Russian is the 8th most spoken language in the world by number of
native speakers and the 4th by total number of speakers. The language is one of the six official
languages of the United Nations.
The 2001 UK Census recorded 15,160 Russian-born residents.Estimates published by the Office for
National Statistics suggest that the resident Russian-born population of the UK was 32,000 in 2009. The
supposed population surge led to jocular nicknames for London such as "Londongrad" and "Moscow-onThames".
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Bitter Pill Productions presents
The Merry Wives of Windsor
From Nairobi, Kenya
Performed in Swahili
Wednesday 25 April 2.30pm
Thursday 26 April 7.30pm
An exuberant, urban and 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 rural African women, first played at the Harare International
Festival of Arts in Zimbabwe, before travelling north to engage with the sun-soaked joys of the Swahili
language.
Bitter Pill is an award-winning theatre company working across Europe and Africa. The company is
interested in making work that opens a window to a wider world. Projects in 2011 range from this
production in Swahili on tour in the UK, to a new play based on real Zimbabwean stories which is touring
across sub-Saharan Africa (Harare, Joburg, Windhoek and Gaberone).
Artistic Director Sarah Norman was born in Zimbabwe, where she was a founding member of the
country‘s first multi-racial theatre company, which has toured widely internationally. In the UK she has
assisted directors including Chris Luscombe, Lyndsey Posner, Ian Talbot and Edward Kemp. Her
directing work includes Mamet‘s Duck Variations, the UK premiere of Wole Soyinka‘s King Baabu, Alvaro
Menen Desleal‘s Black Light, 13 Grape Street, The Interview and Shaw‘s O’Flaherty VC and The
Geometry of Love.
Swahili or Kiswahili is a Bantu language spoken by various ethnic groups that inhabit several large
stretches of the Indian Ocean coastline from northern Kenya to northern Mozambique, including
the Comoros Islands. It is also spoken by ethnic minority groups in Mauritius, Oman,
the Seychelles and Somalia. Although only five million people speak Swahili as their native language, the
total number of speakers exceeds 100 million. It serves as a national, or official language, of four
nations: Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Within much of East
Africa, it is often used as a lingua franca.
There are approximately 120,000 Kenyans living in the United Kingdom.
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National Theatre of Greece presents
Pericles
From Athens, Greece
Performed in Greek
Thursday 26 April 2.30pm
Friday 27 April 7.30pm
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 featured in the World Theatre Seasons
at the Aldwych Theatre in the 1960s. Like Pericles, they have finally returned – with twelve of Greece‘s
leading actors, to tell this story of wild wanderings around the Mediterranean basin, and their redemptive
conclusion.
The National Theatre of Greece was founded in 1880 with a grant from King George I and Efstratios
Rallis to give theatre a permanent home in Athens. The building itself was designed by Ernst Ziller, and it
was completed in the late 1890s, and in 1900 Angelos Vlachos was appointed as the Director.
The theatre began to expand its operations and in 1901 a drama school opened. The same year, the
theatre opened its doors to the public with a monologue from Dimitris Verardakis' play Maria
Dozapatri and two Greek one-act comedies: Dimitris Koromilas' The Death of Pericles and Charalambos
Anninos' Servant Required. Following the first performance the theatre began to expand in popularity
among Greece's upper and upper middle classes, and staged more productions.
One of the most famous productions of the period was Aeschylus' Oresteia, staged in a prose translation
by Yorgos Sotiriadis. The production sparked a long linguistic conflict, between the adherents
of katharevousa and the modern Demotic Greek. Students from the University of Athens' School of
Philosophy, incited by their classicist professor, Yorgos Mistriotis, marched down Agiou Konstantinou
Street in an attempt to halt the performance. The episodes that followed, known as the Oresteiaka,
resulted in one death and ten injuries on November 8, 1903.
Yannis Houvardas was appointed Artistic Director of the National Theatre of Greece in 2007. A graduate
of RADA, he took an apprenticeship at the Wurtemburg State Theatre, and worked variously as an actor
and director. He was the founding Artistic Director of Notos Theatre Company, a company dedicated to
producing new work and pursuing international theatrical collaborations. He has worked at many national
and state theatres in Greece and abroad, directing more than 80 plays by – among others – Euripides,
Sophocles, Herodas, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Tirso de Molina, Webster, Fernando de Rojas, Moliere,
Racine, Kleist, Goethe, Lessing, Strindberg, Ibsen, Chekhov, Horvat, Wedekind, Brecht, Genet, Williams,
Zola, Sternheim, Kawabata, Coward and Fosse. These productions were staged at theatres such as the
National Theatre of Greece, the State Theatre of Northern Greece, the Royal Dramatic Theatre of
Sweden, the National Theatre of Norway, the Norwegian Theatre of Oslo, the State Theatre of Trondheim
(Norway), the Municipal Theatre of Stockholm, the State Theatre of Wiesbaden, the Lilla Teatern
(Helsinki), and the Tribune Theatre (Stuttgart).
Page 9 of 49
Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the
southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34
centuries of written records. The Greek language holds an important place in the histories of Europe, the
more loosely defined "Western" world, and Christianity; the canon of ancient Greek literature includes
works of monumental importance and influence for the future Western canon, such as the epic
poems The Iliad and The Odyssey. Greek was also the language in which many of the foundational texts
of Western philosophy, such as the Platonic dialogues and the works of Aristotle, were composed;
The New Testament of the Christian Bible was written in Koiné Greek and the liturgy continues to be
celebrated in the language in various Christian denominations (particularly the Eastern Orthodox and
the Greek Rite of the Catholic Church).
Greek was a widely spoken lingua franca in the Mediterranean world and beyond during Classical
Antiquity, and would eventually become the official parlance of the Byzantine Empire. In its modern form,
it is the official language of Greece and Cyprus and one of the 23 official languages of the European
Union. The language is spoken by at least 13 million people today in Greece, Cyprus, and diaspora
communities in numerous parts of the world.
In 2010, the UK Office for National Statistics estimated the Greek-born population of the UK to be roughly
30,000.
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The Company Theatre presents
Twelfth Night
From Mumbai, India
Performed in Hindi
Friday 27 April 2.30pm
Saturday 28 April 7.30pm
Fresh from performing their radical Hamlet: The Clown Prince at 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 the UK with his vibrant version of this comic classic. Following its run at the
Globe, Twelfth Night will tour throughout India.
The Company Theatre, regulars at Mumbai‘s prestigious receiving house the Prithvi, is eighteen years
old. The group has won the respect and admiration of the artistic community in India as well as in other
parts of the world. They have always encouraged inter-cultural exchanges and supported any initiative
that explores new forms of artistic expression. Conscious of the need to be accessible to other cultures as
well as gain access to them, the group has decided to direct its efforts towards an ambitious plan - that of
founding "WORKSPACE"- an International Residency for Theatre Research and Performance. The
Company Theatre is determined to put this Centre on the international map, thanks to the long years of
association with artists‘ organizations all over the world. Workspace will encourage artists to come
together in residency to discover & help create a better understanding of the various trends, practices and
implementation of performance.
With 25 years of experience in the theatre as an actor and director, Atul Kumar is Artistic Director of the
Company Theatre. Atul has performed more than 50 plays in different languages and forms in India and
abroad. Apart from a prolific theatrical career, Atul has worked with other media forms featuring in films,
television series, music videos and commercials.
Standard Hindi, or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi, is a standardised and sanskritised register of
the Hindustani language derived from the Khariboli dialect of Delhi (and the surrounding western Uttar
Pradesh and southern Uttarakhand region). The primary official language of the Republic of India, it is
one of the 22 official languages of India. The spoken Hindi dialects form an extensive dialect continuum of
the Indic language family, bounded on the northwest and west by Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati and Marathi;
on the southeast by Oriya; on the east by Maithili and Bengali; and on the north by Nepali.
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National Theatre of China presents
Richard III
From Beijing, China
Performed in Mandarin
Saturday 28 April 2.30pm
Sunday 29 April 1.30pm & 6.30pm
This production will mark 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
st
China. Their trailblazing productions show the new face of 21 -century Chinese theatre. . This production
of Shakespeare‘s horror-show of power and paranoia will be directed by the National‘s Associate
Director, Wang Xiaoying.
The National Theatre of China (NTC) is the largest state-level performing art organization of the People‘s
Republic of China. It was founded when the former China National Youth Theatre and China National
Experimental Theatre were combined. Home to a wealth of talents across the performing arts, NTC offers
a platform where tradition meets modernity and state-of-the-art performance is pursued to produce
theatrical masterpieces. The company brings together talented artists from around China. Thanks to
these artists‘ contributions, the NTC has won numerous prizes for performance and will perform at the
Melbourne Festival in October 2011.
Wang Xiaoying is the Vice President of National Theatre of China. After graduating in Directing
Department of the Central Academy of Drama in 1984, Mr. Wang continued his studies and became the
first person to receive a Doctorate of Directing in China under the guidance of Professor Xu Xiaozhong in
1995.
Wang Xiaoying has produced many acclaimed works in recent years, including The Salem Witch,
Copenhagen, Jane Eyre, 1977, The Man in Wasteland, Xiang Yu, Blind City, Death and the Maiden, and
Great Magic. Mr. Wang also has directed plays on Broadway, in Hong Kong, and Macao, such as The
Unnamed Flue and The Garden Outside.
In Chinese linguistics, Mandarin refers to a group of related Chinese dialects spoken across most of
northern and south western China. Because most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is
also referred to as the northern dialect(s). A north eastern-dialect speaker and a south western-dialect
speaker can hardly communicate except through the standard language, mainly because of the
differences in tone. Nonetheless, the variation within Mandarin does not compare with the much greater
variation found within several other varieties of Chinese, and this is thought to be due to a relatively
recent spread of Mandarin across China, combined with a greater ease of travel and communication
compared to the more mountainous south of China.
When the Mandarin group is taken as one language, as is often done in academic literature, it has more
native speakers (nearly a billion) than does any other language. For most of Chinese history, the capital
has been within the Mandarin area, making these dialects very influential. Mandarin dialects, particularly
the Beijing dialect, form the basis of Standard Chinese, which is also known as "Mandarin".
In the 2001 Census, 247,403 people in the UK listed their ethnicity as Chinese, accounting for 0.4 percent
of the total population. The Chinese community is the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK, with 9.9
percent annual growth between 2001 and 2007. More than 90 percent of this growth was contributed
by net migration.
Page 12 of 49
Yohangza Theatre Company presents
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
From Seoul, South Korea
Performed in Korean
Monday 30 April 7.30pm
Tuesday 1 May 7.30pm
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 spirits of the east Asian forest, Shakespeare‘s characters burst onto the stage with a fresh,
eastern vibrancy.
Yohangza Theatre Company‘s style is an exciting collision of the past and the present: a reworking of
existing Korean styles and themes infused with contemporary elements and driven by a thirst for
experimentation. The result is a compelling mix of energetic dance, voice and percussion interwoven with
Korean folklore, mythology and history. The production is a sensory and aesthetic journey that draws the
audience toward both past and future while staying strongly connected to Korea's identity and sprit.
Yohangza have been invited to various Shakespeare festivals and world art centres in Australia, Cuba,
Germany, Poland, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taipei and the UK. Their performances have struck a chord
with both Korean and international audiences, Recently Yang Jung-Ung won the South Korean Best
Production of the Year Award 2009, South Korea's Best Young Playwright of the Year Award, and
Yohangza was named Best Production at the Gdansk Shakespeare Festival, Poland, 2006, and at the
Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre in September, 2003. In 2006, the company was the
first Korean group to perform at the Barbican in London.
Artistic Director Jung-Ung Yang founded the Yohangza Theatre Company in 1997. He has been awarded
numerous awards in his native Korea and is one of the most influential directors working in the country
today.
Korean is the official language of Korea, both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages
in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million
Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing system was commissioned by Sejong
the Great, the system being currently called Hangul. Prior to the development of Hangul, Koreans had
used Hanja and phonetic systems like Hyangchal, Gugyeol and Idu extensively for over a millennium.
Page 13 of 49
I Termini Company presents
Julius Caesar
A Benvenuti / Lungta production in collaboration with Teatro di Roma
From Rome, Italy
Performed in Italian
Tuesday 1 May 2.30pm
Wednesday 2 May 7.30pm
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, transferring in spring 2011 to the prestigious Teatro di Roma.
The company was born in 2002 out of the meeting between the director Andrea Baracco and the actor
Giandomenico Cupaiuolo at the Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D'Amico (National
Academy of Dramatic Arts Silvio D‘Amico). Over the past nine years, the company has worked with
actors, artists and authors from some of the most interesting groups of the new Italian theatrical scene. It
is renowned for the way in which it combines the research of theatrical and new language without
ignoring the great and essential work of the Italian masters.
The company has performed plays by Pirandello, Pinter, Sophocles, Shakespeare, Durrenmatt as well as
other contemporary Italian and English language writers.
Artistic Director, Andrea Baracco studied literature and theatre history at La Sapienza University in Rome.
He also took a diploma as theatre director at Accademia Nazionale di Arte Drammatica Silvio D‘Amico.
He is currently professor in Direction at La Sapienza University in Rome. His work as a director has
included: L’uomo, La Bestia e La Virtù by Luigi Pirandello; Tunnel from F. by Dürrenmatt; Filottete by
Sophocles; Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare and Elisa Cruz by Vincenzo Manna.
Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by
minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant
communities in the Americas and Australia.
According to the statistics of the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 65 million
people in the EU (13% of the EU population), mainly in Italy, and as a second language by 14 million
(3%). Including the Italian speakers in non-EU European countries (such as Switzerland and Albania) and
on other continents, the total number of speakers is more than 85 million.
There are over 200,000 Italian speakers living in the UK.
Page 14 of 49
The South Sudan Theatre Company presents
Cymbeline
From Juba, South Sudan
Performed in Juba Arabic
Wednesday 2 May 2.30pm
Thursday 3 May 7.30pm
The specially-formed South Sudan Theatre Company, from the world‘s newest country, will perform a
Shakespeare play for the first time ever in Juba Arabic.
“I used to lie in the bush under the stars reading Shakespeare’s plays, not thinking about the killing that
would take place in the morning” - Presidential Advisor for Culture, Government of South Sudan.
In April 2011, after more than 50 years of violent struggle, the Republic of South Sudan became the
world‘s newest country. In May 2012 that country will participate in its first major international cultural
event. The performance will represent an historical moment in the fledgling history of the southern
Sudanese nation.
Cymbeline offers a rich framework into which Sudanese culture and characterisation can be
incorporated. In addition to questions of politics and the military, the play offers the opportunity to mix
South Sudan‘s strong tradition of magic, prophets and soothsayers, class and caste and even child
abduction. Questions of sexual morality are at the top of the social agenda in South Sudan and will
provide a rich ground for an innovative adaptation of the play. Ultimately Cymbeline‘s story of hope and
redemption provides a strong metaphor for South Sudan‘s own story.
The South Sudan Theatre Company has been newly established to stage the production and key
theatrical figures from Sudan have agreed to take part in the venture. The patron of the project will be
Taban Lo Liyong, who is often described as one of Africa‘s greatest poets. He has studied and worked
around the world and is renowned not only as an important poet, critic, novelist and short story writer but
also for his extravagant personality. The production will be directed by Joseph Abuk, an acclaimed
director and theatrical activist born in South Sudan in 1947.
Shakespeare‘s plays have served various functions in Africa, perhaps most importantly they have been
megaphones for political aspirations and camouflage for political dissent. In addition to Western theatre
practices, the South Sudan Theatre Company will draw on numerous, sometimes competing influences
from across the region, not just Sudan.
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Juba Arabic is widely spoken across South Sudan and in the diaspora. It developed in the 19 century as
a pidgin spoken among Southern Sudanese forcibly conscripted into the Sudanese army and was
recognised by some scholars as a distinct creole in the 1970s.
A 2006 estimate from the International Organisation for Migration suggests that between 10,000 and
25,000 Sudanese are living in London, and up to another 25,000 elsewhere in the UK.
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Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio presents
Titus Andronicus
From Hong Kong
Performed in Cantonese
Thursday 3 May 2.30pm
Friday 4 May 7.30pm
The hybrid culture of Hong Kong informs this production of Shakespeare‘s grizzliest 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, the voice and movement, to release the
energies of classic texts. His ensemble have toured to Singapore and the US, and Globe to Globe is their
first visit to the UK.
Considered the most harrowing and controversial of Shakespeare‘s plays, Titus Andronicus is one of
the all-time great revenge stories. This production had its world premiere in Cantonese in Hong Kong in
early 2008, and was followed by a story-telling version, Titus Andronicus 2.0, in 2009. Both versions
sought to explore extreme acting techniques in a minimalist setting under director, Tang Shu-wing. The
text of the play is delivered through the voice, facial expression, movements, breathing, spatial
displacement and immobility to create a singular aesthetic somewhere between Western realism and
Asian stylisation.
Strongly physical and minimalist, the Globe version in 2012 will at the same time contain a unique display
of the hybrid cultural peculiarity of Hong Kong.
The multi award-winning Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio, formerly known as No Man‘s Land, was created
in 1997. No Man‘s Land created about 20 works until it changed its name in 2009 to highlight the
minimalist pursuit of its artistic director. Through research and development centered on the art of the
actor, the vision of the Studio is to reinvestigate Hong Kong theatre in its unique cultural context and its
identity in the world theatre. The works of No Man‘s Land included The Life and Death Trilogy, Between
Life and Death, The Hour We Knew Nothing of Each Other, Millennium Autopsy, Deathtrap, Miss
Margarida, Face, The Man, The Chair and The Turtle: A Meditation on Culture, Titus Andronicus. The
works of Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio include Titus Andronicus and Next Generations.
Born in 1959, Tang Shu-wing has been described by Parole Magazine as ―one of the most talented
theatre directors of Hong Kong". Trained in acting at l'Ecole de la Belle de Mai and in theatre aesthetics at
the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris in the late 1980‘s, Shu-wing began his theatre career as
an assistant director and actor in Théâtre de la Main d'Or and other theatre, film and television production
companies in Paris before returning to Hong Kong in 1992. He was co-artistic director of Theatre Resolu
from 1993-96 and has been the artistic director of No Man's Land (renamed as Tang Shu-wing Theatre
Studio in 2009) since 1997. He joined the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts in 2004 and served
as the Dean of Drama for two years before he left the Academy in August 2011. He is renowned for his
physical and minimalist style in the Hong Kong theatre scene due to his training in martial arts, Tai Chi
and yoga.
Cantonese, or Standard Cantonese, is a language that originated in the vicinity of Canton in southern
China, and is often regarded as the prestige dialect of Yue Chinese.
Page 16 of 49
The majority of Cantonese speakers in the UK have origins from the former British colony of Hong Kong
and speak the Canton/Hong Kong dialect, although many are in fact from Hakka-speaking families and
are bilingual in Hakka. There are also Cantonese speakers from south east Asian countries such
as Malaysia and Singapore, as well as from Guangdong in China itself. Today an estimated 300,000
British people have Cantonese as a mother tongue. This represents 0.5% of the total UK population and
1% of the total overseas Cantonese speakers.
Page 17 of 49
Ashtar Theatre presents
Richard II
From Ramallah, Palestine
Performed in Palestinian Arabic
Friday 4 May 2.30pm
Saturday 5 May 7.30pm
Ashtar is a dynamic Palestinian theatre with a global perspective. It was 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. Now this vital theatre company brings its direct story-telling style to Shakespeare‘s great
masterpiece of dislocation.
Ashtar aims at making theatre a fundamental need within Palestinian society through stimulating cultural
awareness, awakening aesthetic perceptions and arousing artistic sensibilities. It also seeks to build and
strengthen cultural bridges with the theatre world through creative works and ideas.
In 2010, Ashtar produced The Gaza Monologues – an international campaign to bring the voices of
Gaza‘s children to the world, performed in Gaza, Ramallah, other cities in the West Bank, and more than
30 countries around the world. Previous productions also include the play 48 Minutes for Palestine,
directed by Mojisola Adebayo, which opened in Ramallah in May 2010 then toured in Jenin, Hebron,
Birzeit University and Bethlehem. Internationally, the play was performed in Spain in the Valencia Festival
in May 2010 and in Brazil in the Belem Festival in July 2010.
Palestinian Arabic is a Levantine Arabic dialect subgroup spoken by Palestinians, Arab citizens of
Israel and the majority of Jordanians. Rural varieties of this dialect exhibit several distinctive features,
which distinguish them from other Arabic varieties. Palestinian urban dialects more closely resemble
northern Levantine Arabic dialects – that is, the spoken forms of Arabic of Syria and Lebanon.
The Palestinian Arabic-speaking population of the United Kingdom is estimated to be several thousand.
Page 18 of 49
Q Brothers
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
Richard Jordan Productions
Present
Othello
From Chicago, USA
Performed in Hip Hop
Saturday 5 May 2.30pm
Sunday 6 May 1.30pm & 6.30pm
This production will be 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 Chicago Shakespeare Theatre is dedicated to creating and
producing classic productions that unlock Shakespeare's work for audiences from all walks of life.
The Q Brothers are GQ and JAQ. GQ co-created, co-directed and starred in the award-winning,
internationally-acclaimed, Funk it Up About Nothin'--a musical, hip-hop "ad-RAP-tation" of Shakespeare's
classic, Much Ado About Nothing. The Off Broadway smash hit The Bomb-itty of Errors, which GQ cocreated and starred in, has since toured around the world. Along with his brother and the other Bomb-itty
company members, G wrote and starred in a hip-hop/sketch comedy TV show, Scratch and Burn (MTV).
G's screen credits include Drumline, Taxi, I Think I Love My Wife and Werner Herzog's Rescue Dawn. He
wrote, directed and starred in Just Another Story (Showtime), has had prominent roles in Boston
Public (Fox), Numbers (CBS) and co-starred in the one-hour drama Johnny Zero (Fox). He recently guest
starred in John Herzfeld's pilot, S.I.S (Sony). Together with his brother JQ, he recorded The Feel Good
Album of the Year. Originally from Chicago, he received his BFA from the Experimental Theatre Wing of
Tisch School of the Arts at NYU.
JAQ was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. JAQ is of mixed ethnic background having
a Pakistani father and a European American mother of German and English descent. The DJ, MC,
beatmaker, producer, beatboxer then moved to NYC where he learned how to make beats and carefully
craft rhymes. He was also composer and co-star of MTV's Scratch and Burn, which he created with his
brother GQ and two of the other bomb-itty company members, Dragon and Jordan. He scored New York
indie film Just Another Story, which aired on Showtime. His brother GQ wrote, directed and starred in the
movie, of which the Q Brothers were associate producers. J was the music video co-director and has a
small cameo.
JAQ has produced the Smashing album for the Grommits, a rock/electro/hip-hop trio, and a solo hip hop
album entitled Foul Mouth Poet. He toured the country extensively with The Grommits for much of 2004.
He is now the lead singer of Them Vs. Them, a new rock band out of Chicago. The Q Brothers, formed by
JAQ and GQ, released an album together entitled, The Feel Good Album Of The Year, a mix of jazz,
heavy metal, R&B, and electronica.
Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in AfricanAmerican and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika
Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing.
Page 19 of 49
Since its emergence in the South Bronx, hip hop culture has spread around the world. Hip hop music first
emerged with disc jockeys creating rhythmic beats by looping breaks (small portions of songs
emphasizing a percussive pattern) on two turntables, more commonly referred to as sampling. This was
later accompanied by "rap", a rhythmic style of chanting or poetry presented in 16 bar measures or time
frames, and beatboxing, a vocal technique mainly used to imitate percussive elements of the music and
various technical effects of hip hop DJs.
Page 20 of 49
Dhaka Theatre presents
The Tempest
From Dhaka, Bangladesh
Performed in Bangla / Bengali
Monday 7 May 7.30pm
Tuesday 8 May 7.30pm
From a land constantly troubled by water, enter Shakespeare‘s mariners, wet and speaking Bangla. Often
called Bengali, Bangla is one of London‘s most populous languages.
Dhaka Theatre was established in Dhaka in 1973, and is one of the pioneers of the new theatre
movement in Bangladesh. Its members believe that theatre should depict the life of the people and
therefore endeavour to find a theatrical expression which will truly depict the country and reflect this. To
achieve this goal, the group emphasises the traditional performing art forms and mixes these with more
modern ideas and technology. The group‘s productions have received acclaim as much for their artistry
as for their portrayal of Bangladeshi themes. The company performed many of the works of the great
playwright Selim al-Din, while Nasiruddin Yousuff directs the productions. The company has staged over
26 plays, many of which have toured not only throughout Bangladesh but also internationally. The group
has staged Bangla versions of Brecht‘s Resistable Rise and Fall of Arturo Ui and The Merchant of
Venice.
Dhaka Theatre has also initiated a programme of work known as Gram Theatre which stages plays
enacted by villagers in found open spaces.
Bengali or Bangla is an eastern Indo-Aryan language. It is native to the region of eastern South
Asia known as Bengal, which comprises present day Bangladesh, the Indian state of West Bengal, and
parts of the Indian states of Tripura and Assam. It is written with the Bengali script. With nearly 300 million
total speakers, Bengali is one of the most spoken languages (ranking sixth) in the world.
Bangladeshis form one of the UK's largest immigrant groups, and are also one of its youngest and
fastest-growing communities. The population of Bangladeshis in Britain has grown steadily over the
years. Estimates suggest there are currently about 500,000 Bangladeshis residing in the UK.
Page 21 of 49
Teatr im. Kochanowskiego presents
Macbeth
From Opole, Poland
Performed in Polish
Tuesday 8 May 2.30pm
Wednesday 9 May 7.30pm
Thursday 10 May 2.30pm
Raves and binges lighten the nights in Maja Kleczewska‘s Dunsinane, in this glitzy production of Macbeth
which echoes the films of David Lynch and Pedro Almodovar. Transvestites, addicts and track-suited
gangsters wander the corridors and teeter on the brink of sanity.
The Kochanowski Theatre is situated in Opole, once home of the great theatrical visionary Jerzy
Grotowski. Following Biuro Podrozy and the Song of the Goat at the National Theatre and Barbican
respectively, Kleczewska‘s pop culture interpretation will continue a growing tradition of Polish Macbeths
in London.
Named after the sixteenth-century Polish poet Jan Kochanowski, the theatre is the third largest in Poland
(after Warsaw and Łodz). It is famous in Poland for hosting one of the country‘s biggest theatre festivals –
the annual Opole Theatre Prize.
Artistic Director Thomas Konin is a graduate of Warsaw‘s National Theatre School. He is a prolific director
of theatre and opera. He directed the Polish premiere of Rossini‘s Journey to Reims, and he was
awarded the Golden Mask of Łodz for his production of Adriana Lecouvreuer in 2004. He was previously
Albert Vilar Fellow at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He directed Verdi‘s opera Macbeth at the
Grand Theatre, Łodz. He was appointed Artistic Director of the Kochanowski in 2007.
Polish is a Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages in Central Europe and the official
language of Poland. Its written standard is the Polish alphabet which corresponds to the Latin
alphabet with several additions. Polish speakers use the language in a uniform manner throughout most
of Poland. Despite the pressure of non-Polish administrations in Poland, who have often attempted to
suppress the Polish language, a rich literature has developed over the centuries, and the language is
currently the largest in terms of speakers of the West Slavic group. It is also the second most widely
spoken Slavic language, after Russian. There are roughly 15 to 20 million people of Polish ancestry living
outside Poland, making the Polish diaspora one of the largest in the world.
In 2010, the UK Office for National Statistics estimated that there were more than half a million people of
Polish origin living in Britain.
Page 22 of 49
Two Gents Productions presents
Two Gentlemen of Verona
From Zimbabwe
Performed in Shona
Wednesday 9 May 2.30pm
Thursday 10 May 7.30pm
Vakomana Vaviri ve Zimbabwe, a stunning African version of Shakespeare‘s Two Gentlemen of Verona,
is 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. When Valentine
is banished, their friendship is threatened and only through disguise, deception and intrigue are they
reconciled. In a broad, loud, triumphantly energetic 'township' style the two actors slip into all of the play's
fifteen characters – from amorous suitors to sullen daughters, depressed servants and even a dog.
Using little to no props, a few items of clothing and a set that consists of no more than a trunk, the actors
explore the text‘s nuances from a distinctly Zimbabwean perspective, bringing Shakespeare‘s verse to life
in this new, specially commissioned Shona translation. With a watchful eye, great intuition and comic
timing, the actors Denton Chikura and Tonderai Munyevu draw the audience into the action and create a
soulful and engaging theatrical experience not to be missed.
Two Gents Productions is a Zimbabwean theatre company based in London, and founded in February
2008. It is composed of the actors Denton Chikura and Tonderai Munyebvu, and the director Arne
Pohlmeier. The company‘s aim is to present Shakespeare in new and unfamiliar ways by fusing it with
contemporary Zimbabwean performance modes of storytelling, improvisation, mime and dance. The
company‘s fast paced, minimalist approach influenced by South African protest plays such as Woza
Albert!, The Island and Sizwe Banzi is Dead, lends itself beautifully to the language of Shakespeare.
The company members‘ individual cultural backgrounds, their experience of migration and audiencecentred, physically engaging yet technically minimalist style infuse all Two Gents‘ productions. To date
the company has presented in London and the UK: Two Gentlemen of Verona, Kupenga Kwa Hamlet and
Magetsi. Vakomana Vaviri ve Zimbabwe at Shakespeare‘s Globe is the first full length Shona language
production.
Shona is a Bantu language, native to the Shona people of Zimbabwe and southern Zambia; the term is
also used to identify peoples who speak one of the Shona language
dialects: Zezuru, Karanga, Manyika, Ndau and Korekore. Shona is a principal language of Zimbabwe,
along with Ndebele and and the official business language, English. Shona is spoken by a large
percentage of the people in Zimbabwe. Other countries that host Shona language speakers are Zambia,
Botswana and Mozambique.
Shona is the Bantu language most widely spoken as a native language. According to Ethnologue, Shona
comprising the Karanga, Zezuru, and Korekore dialects, is spoken by about 10.8 million people.
There are nearly 50,000 Zimbabweans living in the UK.
Page 23 of 49
National Theatre Belgrade in Association with Laza Kostic Fund present
Henry VI: Part 1
From Belgrade, Serbia
Performed in Serbian
Friday 11 May 7.30pm
Sunday 13 May 12.30pm
Internationally acclaimed Serbian director Nikita Milivojevic makes his UK debut with the thrilling first part
of a new Balkan trilogy, the first time the Henry VI trilogy has played at Shakespeare‘s Globe.
Milivojevic‘s Henry VI Part 1 will ignite this trilogy, tackling machinations, mendacity and military heroics
leading up to civil war.
Established in 1861, The Serbian National Theatre began its life presenting opera and ballet, before
incorporating drama into its repertoire from 1868. Having performed a number of Shakespeare‘s works at
the company‘s Belgrade home during its long history, the National Theatre‘s production of Henry VI Part 1
will debut in the UK as part of the Globe to Globe Festival. At its base in the Serbian capital, the National
Theatre houses two venues for the performing arts.
The National Theatre presents this work in association with The Laza Kostic Fund, founded in 1991. The
Fund works to promote the works of Laza Kostic and music, art, literature, drama and cultural traditions of
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Serbia. The genesis of this Fund marked the 150 Birthday of Dr Laza Kostic (1841-1910), a widely
respected Serbian writer and academic. A great admirer, critic and translator of Shakespeare, Kostic
translated four tragedies into Serbian between 1859 and 1909, strictly translating the texts‘ iambic
pentameter line by line. His 1864 Ode to Shakespeare helped to whet the Serbian appetite for
Shakespearean drama.
Nikita Milivojevic has received numerous Serbian theatre awards for directing including the Politika award
at the 31st Bitef for best directing; Critics Award from theatre journal Scena. His productions of Ivanov
and Crime and Punishment in Amore Theatre in Greece were proclaimed the theatrical events of the
year in Athens. He previously held the position of Artistic Director of the celebrated BITEF festival – the
most significant cultural forum in modern Serbia.
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries. Serbian is the only European language
with active digraphia, using both Cyrillic and Latin alphabets. There are 9 – 10 million Serbian speakers
globally.
Page 24 of 49
National Theatre of Albania presents
Henry VI: Part 2
From Tirana, Albania
Performed in Albanian
Saturday 12 May 2.30pm
Sunday 13 May 4.00pm
Shakespeare‘s great meditation on riot and rebellion is brought to life by a company freed from a
Communist dictatorship just over a decade ago.
Since the early days of the new republic, the National Theatre of Albania has opened its repertoire to
foreign plays, and experimented with forbidden writers, and now Adonis Filipi directs Henry VI Part 2 as
part of a new Balkan trilogy.
In its 66 year history, the Albanian National Theatre has mounted around 360 productions. With the fall of
the dictatorship in 1990, the now internationally renowned, Tirana-based company has become a
landmark cultural institution in Albania. Some 34 actors make up the National Theatre's regular company.
Director Adonis Filipi has over 30 years experience in directing and managing theatres all around Europe,
and has directed and coordinated 12 international theatre festivals globally. This includes the well-known
Skampa International Theatre Festival, with which he is still involved. Filipi has directed 38 plays across
Europe, including works by Sophocles, Euripides and Ionesco.
Albanian is an Indo-European language spoken by approximately 6 million people, primarily in Albania
and Kosovo but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including
western Macedonia, southern Montenegro, southern Serbia and northwestern Greece. Albanian is also
spoken in centuries old Albanian colonies in southern Greece and in southern Italy and Sicily.
Page 25 of 49
National Theatre of Bitola presents
Henry VI: Part 3
From Bitola, Macedonia
Performed in Macedonian
Saturday 12 May 7.30pm
Sunday 13 May 7.30pm
The National Theatre of Bitola completes the Balkan trilogy, and performs for the first time in the UK.
The third part of the 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 Bitola National Theatre,
which staged the first play in the Macedonian language following the liberation of the country from the
Axis Powers in 1944.
Founded in 1945, the National Theatre of Bitola is the oldest and largest professional theatre in
Macedonia. Since its founding, the theatre has produced 508 Macedonian premieres and has welcomed
nearly four million audience members.
The theatre is bursting with ambition: it aims to nurture the co-existence of theatrical traditions and
exploration into the latest theatrical trends; to cater to the tastes of audiences from all social backgrounds
and those of different ages and tastes and to experiment with a range of genres. Its recent successes
demonstrate the company‘s success in meeting these aims on home ground, and this production of
Henry VI Part 3 will further its work to establish an international reputation.
The Artistic Director of the company and director of this production, Dejan Lilic, is dedicated to raising its
profile internationally. When Lilic took on his role at the company, it was in debt and had no clear
repertory programme. He aims to add to the institution‘s focus and direction and to work collaboratively
with actors and other creatives.
Lilic says of his plans for the National Theatre of Bitola in the coming years: ―It will become a serious
national theatre company, which will incorporate into its repertoire classics from Macedonia and abroad all, of course, translated into modern theatrical language. It will pay special attention to modern
Macedonian drama as a pillar of the National Theatre. All this means that the National Theatre in the next
few years will explore contemporary European theatre in its work, whilst at the same time selectively
building its own theatrical identity.‖
Macedonian is a South Slavic language spoken as a first language by approximately 2–3 million people
principally in the region of Macedonia but also in countries such as Australia, Canada, Croatia, Italy,
Russia, Serbia, the United States. It is the official language of the Republic of Macedonia and holds the
status of official minority language in parts of Albania, Romania and Serbia. There are approximately
1,285 Macedonian-born residents of the UK.
Page 26 of 49
Compañia Nacional de Teatro presents
Henry IV Part 1
From Mexico City, Mexico
Performed in Mexican Spanish
Monday 14 May 7.30pm
Tuesday 15 May 2.30pm
Created in 1977, the Compañia Nacional de Teatro 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 presentation of madness in
the land and mayhem in the pub, is directed by the electrifying young director Hugo Arrevillaga.
The company is an association of artists, workers, promoters and fans of the performing arts that aims at
the creation and dissemination of a balanced, dynamic and diverse theatrical repertoire.
Recent productions include Pascua (2009), Ni el sol ni la muerte pueden mirarse de frente (2009), Edip
en Colofón (2009), Ser es ser visto (2009), Egmont (2009), Horas de gracia (2010),Zoot Suit (2010), El
Malentendido (2010), Natán el sabio (2010) and Endgame (2010).
Mexican Spanish is a version of the Spanish language, spoken in Mexico and in various regions of
Canada and the United States of America, where there are communities of Mexican origin.
Spanish was brought to Mexico beginning in the 16th century CE. As a result of Mexico City's central role
in the colonial administration of New Spain, the population of the city included relatively large numbers of
speakers from Spain. Mexico City (Tenochtitlán) had also been the capital of the Aztec Empire, and many
speakers of the Aztec language Nahuatl continued to live there and in the surrounding region,
outnumbering the Spanish-speakers for several generations. Consequently, Mexico City tended
historically to exercise a standardizing effect over the entire country, evolving into a distinctive dialect of
Spanish which incorporated a significant number of hispanicized Nahuatl words.
The government of Mexico recognizes 68 distinct indigenous Amerindian languages as national
languages in addition to Mexican Spanish.
According to the 2001 UK Census, 5,049 Mexican-born people were living in the UK.
Page 27 of 49
Elkafka Espacio Teatral present
Henry IV Part 2
From Buenos Aires, Argentina
Performed in Argentinean Spanish
Tuesday 15 May 7.30pm
Wednesday 16 May 7.30pm
Rubén Szuchmacher, one of Argentina‘s most influential and controversial theatre-makers, directs a new
production of this elegiac and funny masterpiece. A celebrated defender of the theatre‘s freedom from
the state, Szuchmacher‘s 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 admired Shakespearean artists in
South America.
Elkafka Espacio Teatral is an independent theatre company from Buenos Aires. Rubén Szuchmacher, its
director, has directed many theatre pieces in the official and commercial arena, but it is with this group
that he has produced some of his most experimental and best-known theatre. His most acclaimed work
includes: Mi querida (My Dear), by Griselda Gambaro; El siglo de oro del peronismo (The Golden Age of
Peronism), based on texts by Calderón de la Barca, Marcelo Bertuccio and the director himself; Quartett,
by Heiner Müller; Las reglas de la urbanidad en la sociedad moderna (Urbanity rules in modern society),
by Jean-Luc Lagarce; Hijos del Sol (Sons of the sun), by Maxim Gorky; Escandinavia, by Lautaro Vilo. He
has received a host of awards, including the ―ACE‖ award, granted by Argentina‘s leading theatre critics,
and the ―Trinidad Guevara‖, the most prestigious award in Argentinean theatre granted in Argentina, for
his production of King Lear.
Szuchmacher, was born in Buenos Aires in 1951 and studied music, performance and scenic direction at
the Colon Theatre of Buenos Aires. He has directed the FIBA (Festival Internacional de Buenos Aires)
and created the Festival del Rojas, for new artists. He has worked as a theatre instructor in Argentina,
Spain, Germany, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Uruguay.
Argentinean Spanish (or Rioplatense Spanish) is a dialectal variant of the Spanish language spoken
mainly in the areas in and around the River Plate region of Argentina and Uruguay. Rioplatense is mainly
based in the cities of Buenos Aires, La Plata, Mar del Plata, Santa Fe and Rosario in
Argentina, Montevideo in Uruguay, and the south of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. This regional form of
Spanish is also found in other areas, not geographically close to but culturally influenced by those
population centres (e.g., in parts of Paraguay and in all of Patagonia). Rioplatense is the standard in
audiovisual media in Argentina and Uruguay.
In 2001, it was estimated that there were approximately seven thousand Argentinean nationals resident in
the UK.
Page 28 of 49
Gabriel Sundukyan National Academic Theatre presents
King John
From Yerevan, Armenia
Performed in Armenian
Wednesday 16 May 2.30pm
Thursday 17 May 7.30pm
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 on Shakespearean
projects, and he has proven an enduring symbol of freedom in times of oppression. Many great actors
and directors have emerged from Armenia to go on to great international success, and this is the first visit
to the UK of their National Theatre.
The Gabriel Sundukyan National Academic Theatre of Yerevan was founded in 1922 and is named after
the founder of the Armenian school of realistic drama. This eminent theatre company has always
engaged enthusiastically with the plays of Shakespeare, and produced a version of Othello as early as
1926.
Well-known actors and directors such as Vahram Papazian and Hrachia Ghaplanyan were the stars of
the theatre's company. They performed both national and foreign plays, such as Sundukyan's The
Testament, Muratsan's Rouzan, Shant's Ancient Gods, Camus's Caligula and Chekhov's The Cherry
Orchard.
The Armenian language is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenian people. It is the official
language of the Republic of Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The language is also
widely spoken by Armenian communities in the Armenian diaspora. It has its own script, the Armenian
alphabet, and is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological developments within Indo-European.
There has been sporadic emigration from Armenia to the UK since the 18th century, with the biggest
influx coming after the Second World War. The majority are based in the major cities
of London and Manchester. The 2001 UK Census recorded 589 Armenian-born people living in the
UK, although there are up to 18,000 ethnic Armenians including those who are British-born, and of
part Armenian descent, living in the UK.
Page 29 of 49
Belarus Free Theatre presents
King Lear
From Minsk, Belarus
Performed in Belarusian
Thursday 17 May 2.30pm
Friday 18 May 7.30pm
One of the world‘s bravest ensembles, Belarus Free Theatre was established in 2005 by Nikolai Khalezin
and Natalia Kaliada. The group has no official premises, nor any other facilities. 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. In their work, they demonstrate a spiritual resilience and an
irreverent humour in the face of their own dilemma. Despite suffering every form of intimidation and
harassment, BFT continue to produce great theatre that is recognised internationally.
Belarus Free Theatre‘s performances in the UK have been almost universally acclaimed. Supporters
include Tom Stoppard, Arthur Kopit, Mick Jagger and the late Harold Pinter. They have also performed
internationally, in Paris, New York, Stockholm, Moscow, Rotterdam and Hong Kong. In 2011 they were
nominated for the Theatrical Experience Drama Desk Award for Being Harold Pinter and were awarded
the prestigious off-Broadway OBIE award.
The BFT have performed in street cafes, in the countryside and in the woods. Their main aim is to break
stereotypes of the Belarusian population. Members of the Belarus Free Theatre cite Václav Havel and the
1989 Velvet Revolution in the former Czechoslovakia, Polish theatre, and other Eastern European protest
movements of the 1960s and '70s as inspirations and models for their artistic resistance.
Belarusian is an official language of Belarus, along with Russian. Prior to Belarus gaining its
independence from the Soviet Union in 1992, the language was known in English as Byelorussian or
Belorussian, or alternatively as White Russian or White Ruthenian. The 1999 Belarus Census declared
the Belarusian language as a "language spoken at home" by about 3,686,000 Belarusian citizens (36.7%
of the population). About 6,984,000 (85.6%) of Belarusians declared it their "mother tongue". Other
sources put the "population of the language" as 6,715,000 in Belarus and 9,081,102 in all
countries. According to a study done by the Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak
Russian at home, while Belarusian is used by only 11.9% of Belarusians. 29.4% of Belarusians can write,
speak and read Belarusian, while only 52.5% can read and speak it. According to the research, one out of
ten Belarusians does not understand Belarusian.
The 2001 UK Census recorded 1,154 Belarusian-born people living in the UK, although recent estimates
have placed the figure closer to 5,000.
Page 30 of 49
Marjanishvili State Drama Theatre presents
As You Like It
From Tbilisi, Georgia
Performed in Georgian
Friday 18 May 2.30pm
Saturday 19 May 7.30pm
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 directed by the company‘s Artistic Director Levan Tsuladze known for his
energetic, high-tempo and wildly imaginative productions of European classics.
The Majanishvili State Drama Theatre was founded in 1928 by the renowned director Kote Marjanishvili.
By combining the rich tradition of Georgian Theatre with the best examples of European drama, he
created a powerful new aesthetic which has remained at the centre of Georgian theatrical life.
The company has been acclaimed around the world touring its productions to Japan, Russia, the UK, the
Czech Republic and Poland. Since 2006 it has been under the leadership of Levan Tsuladze. He is a
leading figure in a new generation of theatre makers in Georgia and the founder of the Basement Theatre
company, Georgia‘s first independent theatre group, formed in 1997.
The Marjanishvili‘s own theatre in Tblisi recently underwent extensive renovations, reopening in 2006
under Tsuladze‘s directorship and has rapidly re-established itself at the centre of cultural Georgian life.
Georgian theatre has a long history; its oldest national form was the "Sakhioba" which began in the 3rd
century BC and was in practice until the 17th century AD. The Georgian National Theatre was founded in
1791 in Tbilisi, by the writer, dramatist and diplomat Giorgi Avalishvili (1769-1850).
Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia.
Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000
abroad. It is the literary language for all regional subgroups of the Georgian ethnos, including those who
speak other Kartvelian (South Caucasian) languages: Svans, Mingrelians, and the Laz. Judaeo-Georgian,
sometimes considered a separate Jewish language, though some just consider it Georgian, is spoken by
an additional 20,000 in Georgia and 65,000 elsewhere (primarily 60,000 in Israel).
Page 31 of 49
Grupo Galpão presents
Romeo and Juliet
From Belo Horizonte
Performed in Brazilian Portuguese
Saturday 19 May 2.30pm
Sunday 20 May 1.30pm
Sunday 20 May 6.30pm
Perhaps the Americas‘ most famous production of the most famous play ever, Grupo Galpão‘s
carnivalesque Romeo and Juliet returns to Shakespeare‘s Globe with its thrilling mix of circus, music,
dance and Brazilian folk culture.
Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy of love, freedom and death, driven at the speed of the couple‘s youth.
Galpão‘s famed circus skills are blended with the folk performance techniques of director, Gabriel Villela.
The angst and pleasure, the driving force of love, the violence and passion concentrated in
Shakespeare‘s text are conveyed on stage in conjunction with the breakneck speed of the story.
Grupo Galpão was founded by a small group of novice actors in 1982. They took over the streets of
―Minas‖ taking on modern urban chaos on their own terms in order to find an identity of their own.
Galpão‘s performance style has been developed through consistent research, touring, participation in
festivals, courses, workshops and the incorporation of dance, juggling and mask techniques.
The staging of Romeo and Juliet was a landmark in the company‘s career. The collaboration with Gabriel
Villela enabled them to perform a classic in the streets. Since it was premièred in the streets in 1992,
Galpão‘s poignant rendition of Romeo and Juliet has been a huge success, both at the box office and
with the critics, in Brazil and abroad.
Brazilian Portuguese is a group of Portuguese dialects written and spoken by most of the 190 million
inhabitants of Brazil and by a few million Brazilian emigrants, mainly in the United States, Portugal,
Canada, Japan, Paraguay and the United Kingdom.
Page 32 of 49
Chiten presents
Coriolanus
From Kyoto, Japan
Performed in Japanese
Monday 21 May 7.30pm
Tuesday 22 May 7.30pm
This renowned company from Kyoto works under the direction of one of Japan‘s most imaginative artists,
Motoi Miura. Known for its minimalist and avant-garde vision, this company produces an expressive
theatre rooted in the exploration of words, sound and the human body.
Originally formed in Tokyo, Chiten moved to Kyoto in 2005. Under the directorship of Motoi Miura, the
company is particularly celebrated for its highly contemporary stagings of the works of Chekhov. In 2005
their production of The Seagull won the Toga Directors‘ Competition, followed in 2007 by an ambitious
project to stage production of all four of Chekhov‘s great masterpieces. The third production of this series,
The Cherry Orchard, saw Miura win the Agency for Cultural Affairs New Director Award. In most
Japanese theatre companies the roles of Artistic Director and Playwright are combined, Chiten is unusual
in that the Artistic Director‘s role is devoted only to directing.
Born in 1973, Motoi Miura graduated from Toho Gakuen College of Drama and Music where he studied
under Kouichi Kimura, Yukio Ninagawa and Mitsumasa Shinozaki. In 1996 he joined Seinendan Theatre
Company where he became the assistant director to Oriza Hirata. From 1999 he studied and worked in
Paris for two years, and on his return to Japan in 2001 he became the Artistic Director of Chiten. He
worked with radical plays from around the world and became something of a pioneer in Japan for his
promotion of new international writers. Following the company‘s move to Kyoto in 2005, alongside its
work on Chekhov‘s plays, Miura directed productions of Arthur Miller‘s The Crucible, which won the Best
Scenography award at the Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre, and the Philip Glass
opera based on Kafka‘s In the Penal Colony.
Japanese is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant
communities.
According to the 2001 UK Census, 37,535 Japanese born people were residing in the UK, whilst the
Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that 50,864 Japanese nationals were calling the UK home
in 2002. The Office for National Statistics estimates that, in 2009, 34,000 people born in Japan were
resident in the UK.
Page 33 of 49
Deafinitely Theatre presents
Love’s Labours Lost
From London
Performed in British Sign Language (BSL)
Tuesday 22 May 2.30pm
Wednesday 23 May 7.30pm
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 theatregoers of
all backgrounds.
Deafinitely, which has worked at the Soho Theatre, and the Tricycle, aims to build a bridge between Deaf
and hearing worlds by performing to both groups as one audience. This is the first time this has been
attempted with a full Shakespeare play.
Established in 2002, Deafinitely Theatre is an independent, professional company led by Deaf people.
Funded by Arts Council England, they create productions in British Sign Language (BSL) and English,
which can be understood by everyone, and yet retain BSL as the leading language. As well as
presenting work by canonical writers, Deafinity aims for untold stories from the Deaf community to be
performed on the stage and encourages deaf people to create their own plays through an annual
playwriting competition.
An actor, director, workshop leader and organiser, Paula Garfield will direct this production of Love’s
Labours Lost. Garfield has worked on a variety of television, film and theatre projects over the past
fifteen years. She set up Deafinitely Theatre with Steven Webb and Kate Furby after becoming frustrated
at the blocks that Deaf actors and directors face in mainstream media. She has produced and directed a
number of works in the theatre including Two Chairs, Motherland, and Children of a Greater God. She
has directed all but one of Definitely Theatre's shows. She has also worked extensively for TV, including
Channel Four‘s Learn Sign Language, Four Fingers and a Thumb, and has appeared in every series of
the BBC's Deaf drama, Switch.
It is not known exactly how many people use BSL, but estimates of the number of Deaf signers who use it
as their first language range from 30,000 to 70,000. Many hearing people also know some BSL because
they might have family members, friends or colleagues who are deaf, and recent figures from the British
Deaf Association suggest that on any day up to 250,000 people use some BSL.
Page 34 of 49
Arpana presents
All’s Well That Ends Well
From Mumbai, India
Performed in Gujarati
Wednesday 23 May 2.30pm
Thursday 24 May 7.30pm
Arpana will present a new Gujarati adaptation of All’s Well That Ends Well. The production will be
designed in the style of the ―Bhangwadi‖ theatre that catered initially to an audience of daily wage
labourers in the late nineteenth century, but over time became very popular with a wide range of
audiences. This style is a celebratory mix of live music, dance, and theatrical acting. The production will
feature some of Mumbai‘s most talented singer-actors.
Arpana (Offering) was founded in 1985 by theatre professionals committed to presenting a theatre which
engages with contemporary reality. Over the last 25 years Arpana has staged 22 productions, which
have been performed in Mumbai, and other parts of the country. Arpana has been a regular participant at
national and international theatre festivals in India.
Arpana is renowned for its original scripts by Indian playwrights, superlative performances, innovative
staging techniques, and has a wide experience of performing in regular theatres and informal
performance spaces.
For the past few years Arpana has located and developed alternative performance spaces along with
other like-minded theatre groups. These spaces range from people's private residences, public gardens,
open-air amphitheatres, school yards, clubs, and restaurants.
Recent productions from Arpana that have won acclaim include the classic re-telling of the history of
Mumbai textile mill district Cotton 56, Polyester 84, a new adaptation of The Three Penny Opera,
Mastana Rampuri Urf Chappan Chhuri, an exploration of censorship in contemporary theatre history, S*x,
M*rality & Cens*rship, and Dreams of Taleem, a poignant play about being different. The company‘s
latest production, Stories in a Song, is the outcome of a creative collaboration with Shubha Mudgal and
Aneesh Pradhan, leading classical musicians, and tells stories of music and music making in India.
Sunil Shanbag is one of India‘s most respected theatre-makers. He began his career in 1974 as an actor
and assistant director with the legendary director Satyadev Dubey in Mumbai. In 1985 he was one of the
founder members of Arpana, and in 1988 he became the artistic director of the company. His theatre is
known for its strong social roots, and powerful original texts, many created in collaboration with writers
over months of development. Sunil has been actively involved in theatre in education projects, and has
run programmes in schools using theatre-training techniques to teach language, and life skills to young
students. He has a deep interest in contemporary theatre history and has presented papers at various
seminars and contributed articles to theatre journals. Sunil is also a documentary film maker with several
independent films to his credit.
Gujarati is an Indo-Aryan language, and part of the greater Indo-European language family. It is derived
from a language called Old Gujarati (1100 - 1500 AD) which is the ancestor language of the modern
Gujarati and Rajasthani languages. It is native to the Indian state of Gujarat, and is its chief language, as
well as of the adjacent union territories of Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
There are about 46.1 million speakers of Gujarati worldwide, making it the 26th most spoken native
language in the world.
Due to the large Gujarati diaspora in the UK, Gujarati is offered as a GCSE subject for students in
the United Kingdom.
Page 35 of 49
Renegade Theatre presents
The Winter’s Tale
From Lagos, Nigeria
Performed in Yoruba
Thursday 24 May 2.30pm
Friday 25 May 7.30pm
Yoruba folk tales inform this magical new production of Shakespeare‘s late masterpiece.
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.
Renegade Theatre has been one of Nigeria‘s most consistent theatre establishments for more than a
decade. It has presented more than 400 major productions in some of the major venues around the
country.
The company produced the debut edition of the V Monologues -The Nigerian Story, loosely based on The
Vagina Monologues and created the annual Season of Wole Soyinka Plays, which is now in its fifth year.
It has presented plays in the last two Lagos State Government/UNESCO-sponsored Black Heritage
Festivals - Aimé Cesaire‘s A Season in the Congo in (2010) and Wole Oguntokun‘s The Waiting Room in
(2011).
Director Wole Oguntokun returns to the UK having previously been a consultant to the British Council and
the National Theatre, London, in the latter‘s production of Wole Soyinka‘s Death and The King’s
Horsemen (2009). He was selected by the British Council to be part of a Theatre Director's
Residency/Workshop in the United Kingdom in May 2011. He is a protégé of the Nobel laureate Wole
Soyinka and is widely celebrated in the Nigerian theatre scene.
Yorùbá is a Niger–Congo language spoken in West Africa by approximately 20 million speakers.
Yoruba is the first language of an estimated 20 million people worldwide; a further 2 million people speak
it as a second language. It is one of the six official languages of Nigeria. The native tongue of the Yoruba
people, it is spoken, among other languages, in Nigeria, Benin, and Togo and in communities in other
parts of Africa, Europe and the Americas. The Yoruba population in the UK consists of a high proportion
of students and professionals who left West Africa for political and economic reasons. The largest
concentrations of Yoruba speakers in London were found (according to a survey in 2009) to be in
Greenwich, Hackney, Lambeth and Southwark.
Page 36 of 49
Theatre Wallay presents
The Taming Of The Shrew
From Pakistan
Performed in Urdu
Friday 25 May 2.30pm
Saturday 26 May 7.30pm
Theatre Wallay presents a new production of The Taming of the Shrew, starring the Lahore screen and
stage star Nadia Jamil as Katherine. Navid Shahzad‘s production, rich in colour and energy, explores the
difficulties encountered by modern Pakistani women. With live singers and musicians, a thrilling bhangra
jig rounds off this uplifting version of the first romcom.
The music, colours and speech of Lahore – one of the great bustling metropolises of south Asia – will
infuse this production of Shakespeare‘s comedy. Led by some of Pakistan‘s most respected creative
minds, it promises to be an uproar of passion, fury and love, performed in one of the UK‘s most prevalent
languages.
Urdu is a Central Indo-Aryan language and a register of the Hindustani language that is linguistically
identified with Muslims in the Indian subcontinent. It belongs to the Indo-European family. It is the national
language and lingua franca of Pakistan. It is also largely spoken in some regions of India, where it is one
of the 22 scheduled languages and an official language of five states. Standard Urdu is mutually
intelligible with Standard Hindi. Both languages share the same Indic base and are similar enough in
.
phonology and grammar that they can appear to be one language
The combined UK population of Hindi and Urdu speakers is the fourth largest in the world. According to
the BBC, the Urdu-speaking community in the UK numbers about one million speakers.
Page 37 of 49
Oyun Atölyesi presents
Antony and Cleopatra
From Istanbul, Turkey
Performed in Turkish
Saturday 26 May 2.30pm
Sunday 27 May 1.30pm & 6.30pm
Oyun Atölyesi was founded in 1999. Its first show, a production of Steven Berkoff‘s Kvetch, was
performed in the same year. Since then, the company has produced at least one show each year, and
since 2002 each production has received its premiere in the company‘s own theatre in Kadiköy, on the
Asian side of Istanbul.
This new production of Antony and Cleopatra will be directed by Kemal Aydogan and the lead roles will
be played by Haluk Bilginer and Zerrin Tekindor. The role of Enobarbus will be played by Kevork
Malikyan who is currently appearing as the Ambassador in Yes, Prime Minister in the West End.
Haluk Bilginer is one of Turkey‘s most prestigious actors, he is well known to UK audiences having spent
two years playing Mehmet in Eastenders. As founder and Artistic Director of Oyun Atölyesi he has played
the lead roles in Anthony Horovitz‘s Mind Games, Moliere‘s The Miser and Shakespeare‘s Timon of
Athens.
Turkish is a language spoken as a native language by over 83 million people worldwide, making it the
most commonly spoken of the Turkic languages. Its speakers are located predominantly
in Turkey and Northern Cyprus with smaller groups in Iraq, Greece, Bulgaria, the Republic of
Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania and other parts of Eastern Europe. Turkish is also spoken by several million
people of immigrant origin in Western Europe, particularly in Germany.
Turkish is natively spoken by the Turkish people in Turkey and by the Turkish diaspora in some 30 other
countries. In particular, Turkish-speaking minorities exist in countries that formerly (in whole or part)
belonged to the Ottoman Empire, such as Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece (primarily in Western Thrace),
the Republic of Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia. More than two million Turkish speakers live in
Germany; and there are significant Turkish-speaking communities in the United States, France, The
Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom where there are about ½ million
Turks.
Page 38 of 49
Habima National Theatre presents
The Merchant of Venice
From Tel Aviv, Israel
Performed in Hebrew
Monday 28 May 7.30pm
Tuesday 29 May 7.30pm
The Habima is the centre of Hebrew-language theatre worldwide. Founded in Moscow after in 1913, 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, is their first visit to the United Kingdom.
The initial mission of its founders was to establish a Hebrew-speaking theatre which, one day, would
perform in Israel, in Hebrew. In 1922 Habima opened its legendary production of The Dybbuk by S.
Ansky, directed by Y. Vakhtangov. This production toured Europe, including a visit to London, and the
USA.
In 1928, Habima arrived in Jaffa, Israel and in 1935 the first cornerstone was laid for its permanent home,
inaugurated in 1946. In 1938 it opened its young actors studio, which was one of the first drama schools
in the country. In 1958 Habima won the country's most coveted award,' The Israel Prize' .
Habima continues to be committed to extraordinary theatre-making and to nurturing a new generation of
excellent actors and other theatre professionals. The company produces 10 new plays a year and stages
1300 performances.
Habima‘s plays deal with questions regarding war and peace, Arab-Israeli relations, tensions between
both religious and secular Jews, tensions between OlimHadashim (immigrants) and Zabarim (nativeIsraelis), the status of women, the dynamics in relations between the generations, bureaucratic
corruption, Jewish themes and history, life in the shadow of the Holocaust, the lives of foreign workers in
Israel, and Israeli society generally.
The aspirations and problems that epitomize Israel are also evident in the company‘s productions of
classical plays, from Shakespeare‘s Julius Caesar to Gogol‘s Revizor and Antigone by Sophocles.
Modern Hebrew is spoken by most of the seven million people in Israel while Classical Hebrew has been
used for prayer or study in Jewish communities around the world. The language is attested from the 10th
century BCE to the late Second Temple period, after which the language developed into Mishnaic
Hebrew. Modern Hebrew is one of the official languages of Israel, along with Arabic.
Page 39 of 49
Rakatá presents
Henry VIII
From Madrid, Spain
Performed in Spanish
Tuesday 29 May 2.30pm
Wednesday 30 May 7.30pm
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, Rakatá, 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 Golden Age work.
Taking the Anglo-Hispanic subject of the text as cultural inspiration, Rakatá will develop the project with a
group of internationally trained performers who have worked with the company over the past six years.
Rakatá has been dedicated for more than eight years to the investigation, publication and performance of
Golden Age theatre in Spain. During this time the company has produced four shows, on which Rakatá
has had the opportunity to work with international theatre professionals including Laurence Boswell, John
Wright, Will Keen, Dick Bird, Chahine Yavroyan and Jeremy Herbert. The company‘s productions have
toured throughout Spain and also internationally – to London, Argentina, Venezuela and Panama. At the
head of the project is Rodrigo Arribas, who spent five years with the Compañia Nacional de Teatro
Clásico before founding Rakatá.
Spanish (sometimes called Castilian) (español or castellano in Spanish) is a Romance language in the
Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia during
the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile (present northern
Spain) into central and southern Iberia during the later Medieval period.
In 1999, there were according to Ethnologue 358 million people speaking Spanish as a native language
and a total of 417 million speakers worldwide. Currently these figures are up to 400 and 500 million
people respectively. Spanish is the second most natively spoken language in the world, after Mandarin
Chinese. Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the six official
languages of the United Nations, and used as an official language of the European Union, and Mercosur.
By 2050, it is likely that 10 percent of the world population will be speaking Spanish, and will be the most
widely spoken language in the Western Hemisphere by a considerable degree, including both first and
second language speakers.
The United Kingdom is home to nearly 185,000 Spanish as a first language speakers and over 3 million
bi-lingual Spanish speakers.
Page 40 of 49
Roy-e-Sabs presents
The Comedy of Errors
From Kabul, Afghanistan
Performed in Dari Persian
Wednesday 30 May 2.30pm
Thursday 31 May 7.30pm
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 rehearse and perform in modern
Afghanistan. For the first time, the group is leaving Kabul to perform at the Globe with a new production of
The Comedy of Errors.
Until it was attacked recently, Roy-e-Sabs were rehearsing the production in the British Council
compound in Kabul. Their performance promises to be a great moment of celebration, created under
conditions that most European theatre makers can barely imagine. They are planning to open the
production in spring 2012 in India before travelling to London.
From an article in The Daily Telegraph after the opening of Love’s Labour’s Lost:
“Shakespeare has been performed in Afghanistan for the first time since the Soviet invasion of 1978,
which instigated more than two decades of turmoil almost devoid of cultural activity. A professional
Afghan cast performed a Dari language version of Love's Labour's Lost at sunset on Monday in the
bomb-scarred remains of Kabul's 16th century Babur Gardens.”
Dari or Fārsī-ye Darī in historical terms refers to the Persian court language of the Sassanids. In
contemporary usage, the term refers to the dialects of modern Persian language spoken in Afghanistan,
and hence known as Afghan Persian in some Western sources.
There are approximately 15,000 Afghans living in the UK.
Page 41 of 49
Bremer Shakespeare Company presents
Timon of Athens
From Bremer, Germany
Performed in German
Thursday 31 May 2.30pm
Friday 1 June 7.30pm
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 bold, wild and bouncy production of Timon of Athens, the perfect play for our
times.
The Bremer Shakespeare Company (BSC) was established in 1984 by seven actors who decided to
dedicate their professional enthusiasm to Shakespeare in their own theatre. Inspired by the power of
Shakespeare‘s imagination, the company‘s aim is to provide the audience with the joy of thinking, crying,
laughing, judging and contradicting.
In addition to their Shakespearean productions, the BSC has premiered many new plays. The company
has toured nationwide and internationally, e.g. to Finland, Poland, Austria, Estonia, Italy, England, Israel,
Liechtenstein and India.
The BSC has received several distinguished awards, among them one for developing the performing arts
(Förderpreis Darstellende Kunst) from the Academy of Arts in Berlin. Since 1993, international
cooperations have become an ever more important part of the company‘s work; international
Shakespeare festivals were organised by the BSC and international co-productions became part of the
company‗s programme.
“A courageous choice of a piece, a courageous performance, a dynamic evening. Out of this Timon
speaks an almost tangible, unexpected fury.“ Die Tageszeitung
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an
estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most
widely-spoken first language in the European Union. German is primarily spoken in Germany (where it is
the first language for more than 95% of the population), Austria (89%), Switzerland (65%), the majority
of Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein - the latter princedom being the only state with German as only official
and spoken language.
The German-born population of the UK is the fourth largest foreign-born population, with an estimated
296,000 residents.
Page 42 of 49
Compagnie Hypermobile presents
Much Ado About Nothing
From Paris, France
Performed in French
Friday 1 June 2.30pm
Saturday 2 June 7.30pm
In the Cartoucherie de Vincennes, on the outskirts of Paris, sits a bold and enterprising venue, the
Theatre de la Tempête. Clement Poirée‘s company Hypermobile are one of the principle groups behind
this theatre‘s already impressive reputation. Poirée‘s new production, running at La Tempête in winter
2011, is a bittersweet take on Much Ado About Nothing, set amid the chaos of an Italian restaurant.
Clement Poirée’s previous directorial credits for Hypermobile include Bertholt Brecht’s Dans la jungle des
villes (Théâtre de la Tempête, 2009), Meurtre (Théâtre de la Tempête, 2005) and Kroum l‘Ectoplasme
(Théâtre de la Tempête, 2004). He also directed Jardin Enchanté des Drôles de Petites Bêtes, a show for
children, at the Jardin du Luxembourg, Paris, in 2004.
―Much Ado About Nothing is a deeply subversive work. Rarely has a title so well matched the subject
matter of a play, and communicated so many of its facets. In this comedy, people worry, they laugh, they
fight, they sing – the action is fraught with death, betrayal and duels – but in the end, nothing happens. An
engaged couple gets married, and a plot is foiled almost before it’s begun. It’s a tightrope, as light and
graceful as an acrobat on the wire....‖
- Clement Poirée, director
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, and by various communities
elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts of the world, the
largest numbers of which reside in Francophone Africa. In Africa, French is most commonly spoken
in Gabon, Mauritius, Algeria and Côte d'Ivoire. French is estimated as having between 70 million and 110
million native speakers and 190 million second language speakers. It is the second-most studied foreign
language in the world, after English.
In 2010, the UK Office for National Statistics estimated the French-born population of Great Britain to be
111,000.
Page 43 of 49
Meno Fortas Presents
Hamlet
From Vilnius, Lithuania
Performed in Lithuanian
Saturday 2 June 2.30pm
Sunday 3 June 12.00pm & 6.30pm
Legendary Lithuanian director Eimuntas Nekrošius‘ 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. Nekrošius‘
work, universally regarded as a new chapter in theatre history, engages with the sheer diversity of human
nature, at once funny and violent, visceral and light-hearted, and always deeply compelling.
First performed in May 1997 and many years in the making, this production of Hamlet, which stars
Lithuania‘s number one rock star Andrius Mamontovas as the prince in his first acting role, has received
worldwide acclaim. It has toured extensively around the world and has become one of the most
successful and important productions of a Shakespeare play not just in Lithuania, or Europe, but
throughout the world.
Meno Fortas was established on January 28, 1998, on the initiative of theatre director Eimuntas
Nekrošius, Nadežda Gultiajeva and The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania. Alongside
productions by the company‘s Artistic Director Eimuntas Nekrošius, Meno Fortas also plays host to a
constant stream of international and Lithuanian artists, who rehearse and make work in the theatre. The
theatre has been the base for all of Nekrošius‘ productions since 1998, which have included Hamlet
(1997 – 1998), Macbeth (1999), Othello (2001), The Seasons by Donelaitis (2003), The Song of Songs
(2004), Faust by Goethe (2006) and The Idiot by Dostoevsky (2009).
Eimuntas Nekrošius (born on November 21, 1952 in Pažobris village, Raseiniai district municipality) is
one of the most renowned theatre directors in Lithuania.
In 1978 he graduated from Lunacharsky Institute of Theatre Arts in Moscow. After returning to Lithuania
he worked in the Vilnius State Youth Theatre from 1978 until 1979. In 1979 he moved to the Kaunas
State Drama Theatre, where he stayed for a year until 1980. In 1980 he returned to Vilnius State Youth
Theatre, where he staged series of productions.
Productions by Nekrošius have been awarded diplomas from various theatre festivals in
Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Russia and other countries. Nekrošius is a laureate of numerous state awards.
He received the special prize from the Lithuanian Theatre Union as the Best Director of the Year, and an
award from the Baltic Assembly for Aleksandr Pushkin's Little Tragedies (Mozart and Salieri. Don Juan.
Plague) as the best theatre performance in the Baltic States in 1997. Nekrošius has also won the most
prestigious theatre awards in Poland, Moscow, Italy and Turkey.
Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of
the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about
170,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, closely related to Latvian, although they are not mutually
intelligible. It is written in an adapted version of the Roman script. The Lithuanian language is believed to
be the most conservative living Indo-European language, retaining many features of Proto Indo-European
now lost in other Indo-European languages.
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FULL SCHEDULE
OPENING WEEKEND:
21 - 22 APRIL
VENUS & ADONIS
IsiZulu, IsiXhosa, SeSotho, Setswana,
Afrikaans, South African English / Isango Ensemble
Saturday 21 April 2.30pm & 7.30pm
Sunday 22 April 6.30pm
WEEK ONE: 23 - 29 APRIL
TROILUS & CRESSIDA
Maori / Ngakau Toa
Monday 23 April 7.30pm
Tuesday 24 April 7.30pm
MEASURE FOR MEASURE
Russian / Vakhtangov Theatre
Tuesday 24 April 2.30pm
Wednesday 25 April 7.30pm
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR
Swahili / Bitter Pill
Wednesday 25 April 2.30pm
Thursday 26 April 7.30pm
PERICLES
Greek / National Theatre of Greece
Thursday 26 April 2.30pm
Friday 27 April 7.30pm
TWELFTH NIGHT
Hindi / Company Theatre
Friday 27 April 2.30pm
Saturday 28 April 7.30pm
RICHARD III
Mandarin / National Theatre of China
Saturday 28 April 2.30pm
Sunday 29 April 1.30 & 6.30pm
WEEK TWO: 30 APRIL - 6 MAY
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Korean / Yohangza Theatre Company
Monday 30 April 7.30pm
Tuesday 1 May 7.30pm
JULIUS CAESAR
Italian / I Termini Company
Tuesday 1 May 2.30pm
Wednesday 2 May 7.30pm
CYMBELINE
Juba Arabic
The South Sudan Theatre Company
Wednesday 2 May 2.30pm
Thursday 3 May 7.30pm
TITUS ANDRONICUS
Cantonese / Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio
Thursday 3 May 2.30pm
Friday 4 May 7.30pm
RICHARD II
Palestinian Arabic / Ashtar Theatre
Friday 4 May 2.30pm
Saturday 5 May 7.30pm
OTHELLO
Hip Hop / Q Brothers / CST / RJP
Saturday 5 May 2.30pm
Sunday 6 May 1.30pm & 6.30pm
Week 1: APRIL Mon
WEEK THREE: 7 - 13 MAY
THE TEMPEST
Bangla / Dhaka Theatre
Monday 7 May 7.30pm
Tuesday 8 May 7.30pm
MACBETH
Polish / Teatr im. Kochanowskiego
Tuesday 8 May 2.30pm
Wednesday 9 May 7.30pm
Thursday 10 May 2.30pm
THE TWO GENTLEMEN
OF VERONA
Shona / Two Gents Productions
Wednesday 9 May 2.30pm
Thursday 10 May 7.30pm
HENRY VI: PART 1
Serbian / National Theatre (Belgrade) in
Association with Laza Kostic Fund
Friday 11 May 7.30pm
Sunday 13 May 12.30pm
HENRY VI: PART 2
Albanian / National Theatre of Albania
Saturday 12 May 2.30pm
Sunday 13 May 4.00pm
HENRY VI: PART 3
Macedonian
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National Theatre of Bitola
Saturday 12 May 7.30pm
Sunday 13 May 7.30pm
WEEK FOUR: 14 - 20 MAY
HENRY IV: PART 1
Mexican Spanish
Compañía Nacional de Teatro
Monday 14 May 7.30pm
Tuesday 15 May 2.30pm
HENRY IV: PART 2
Argentine Spanish
Elkafka Espacio Teatral
Tuesday 15 May 7.30pm
Wednesday 16 May 7.30pm
Thursday 24 May 7.30pm
THE WINTER’S TALE
Yoruba / Renegade Theatre
Thursday 24 May 2.30pm
Friday 25 May 7.30pm
THE TAMING OF THE SHREW
Urdu / Theatre Wallay
Friday 25 May 2.30pm
Saturday 26 May 7.30pm
ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA
Turkish / Oyun Atölyesi
Saturday 26 May 2.30pm
Sunday 27 May 1.30pm & 6.30pm
WEEK SIX: 28 MAY - 3 JUNE
KING JOHN
Armenian / Gabriel Sundukyan National
Academic Theatre
Wednesday 16 May 2.30pm
Thursday 17 May 7.30pm
THE MERCHANT OF VENICE
Hebrew / Habima National Theatre
Monday 28 May 7.30pm
Tuesday 29 May 7.30pm
KING LEAR
Belarusian / Belarus Free Theatre
Thursday 17 May 2.30pm
Friday 18 May 7.30pm
HENRY VIII
Castilian Spanish / Rakatá
Tuesday 29 May 2.30pm
Wednesday 30 May 7.30pm
AS YOU LIKE IT
Georgian / Marjanishvili Theatre
Friday 18 May 2.30pm
Saturday 19 May 7.30pm
THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
Dari Persian / Roy-e-Sabs
Wednesday 30 May 2.30pm
Thursday 31 May 7.30pm
ROMEO & JULIET
Brazilian Portuguese / Grupo Galpão
Saturday 19 May 2.30pm
Sunday 20 May 1.30pm & 6.30pm
TIMON OF ATHENS
German
Bremer Shakespeare Company
Thursday 31 May 2.30pm
Friday 1 June 7.30pm
WEEK FIVE: 21 - 27 MAY
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING
French / Compagnie Hypermobile
Friday 1 June 2.30pm
Saturday 2 June 7.30pm
CORIOLANUS
Japanese / Chiten
Monday 21 May 7.30pm
Tuesday 22 May 7.30pm
LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST
British Sign Language/ Deafinitely Theatre
Tuesday 22 May 2.30pm
Wednesday 23 May 7.30pm
HAMLET
Lithuanian / Meno Fortas
Saturday 2 June 2.30pm
Sunday 3 June 12.00pm & 6.30pm
WEEK SEVEN: 8 - 9 JUNE
ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL
Gujarati / Arpana
Wednesday 23 May 2.30pm
HENRY V
English / Shakespeare‘s Globe
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Friday 8 June 7.30pm
Saturday 9 June 7.30pm
Sunday 10 June tba*
* Henry V will continue throughout the Globe Theatre
2012 Season. Further dates
and information for performances after 9 June will be
announced in January 2012.
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BOOKING INFORMATION
BY PHONE: 020 7401 9919
ONLINE (transaction fee applies): www.shakespearesglobe.com
PRICES
Yard (standing) £5
Lower/Middle/Upper Galleries (seated) £10, £15, £25, £35
Seating plans vary for each performance; for details please ask Box Office staff or consult online seating plans at the
time of booking.
Please note that there is no seat in the theatre from which the view is not obscured at some point.
SPECIAL OFFERS
YARD OLYMPIAN
See all 38 productions, with the best view in the house, for just £100 (saving up to £90).
This special ticket gives you access to all matinees during the festival, plus one evening performance of Troilus &
Cressida, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, Henry IV Part 2, Coriolanus and The Merchant of Venice.
MULTIBUYS AND REWARDS PASSPORT
Book for more than one show at the same time to qualify for a multibuy discount. With a Rewards Passport you can
also collect stamps to claim further bonuses. For more information please ask at Box Office or see the website.
MULTIBUY
SHOWS
DISCOUNT%
Biathlon
2
5
-
Triathlon
3
10
-
Pentathlon
5
15
Free drink
Heptathlon
7
20
Backstage tour
Decathlon
10
25
DVD of Globe Theatre production
Marathon
26
35
Drinks reception
Olympian
38
50
Signed copy by all festival participants of
complete works in English.
REWARD
CONCESSIONS
Under 18s £3 off all seats.
Disabled patrons Half-price seats for disabled patrons plus one companion if required.
Under 3s free
SPECIAL OFFERS
FAMILY RATE
Top-price tickets £120
Family – two adults, two under 18s or one adult, three under 18s.
Page 48 of 49
GROUP BOOKINGS
Book ten seated tickets and get one additional ticket free.
Tickets must be for the same performance. Please note there is limited availability for groups in all areas of the theatre. For
groups including students aged under 18 a ratio of one adult per ten students is required. Adults must remain with their
group throughout the performance.
DELIVERY CHARGE
All mailed tickets are subject to a postal charge of £1.50 (UK) or £2.50 (groups and overseas)
REFUNDS
Shakespeare‘s Globe cannot give refunds on any ticket sold.
EXCHANGES
Shakespeare‘s Globe can exchange tickets for another production during Globe to Globe on condition that we receive the
tickets at least 28 days before the performance. There is an administration fee of £2 per ticket, free for Friends of
Shakespeare‘s Globe.
PLEASE NOTE
All offers and discounts are subject to availability and cannot be claimed retrospectively or be used in conjunction
with any other offer. Multibuy discounts and the Rewards Passport are applicable to seated tickets only. Discounts
can only be claimed for performances of Henry V on 8 and 9 June. No refunds or exchanges will be due on previous
transactions.
ACCESS INFORMATION
Tel: 020 7902 1409 Fax: 020 7902 1401
10am – 5pm Monday – Friday
[email protected]
An access guide is available in large print.
Page 49 of 49