Bell Shakespeare Season 2016 1

Romeo & Juliet 2

Othello 3

The Literati 4

Bell Shakespeare Learning 5

Artistic Director Peter Evans Biography 6

Media Enquiries 8

CONTENTS

Bell Shakespeare, Australia’s national theatre company dedicated to the sharing the plays of William Shakespeare and his contemporaries with Australian audiences, has unveiled it’s 2016 programme, the first under the sole Artistic Directorship of Peter Evans.

Peter Evans said, “I’ve had the distinct pleasure of working with one of the greatest Shakespearean minds as Co-Artistic Director for the last 4 years; John Bell. As founder of Bell Shakespeare his legacy is a tribute to performance of classical texts in Australia. It’s with much anticipation that I take up the mantle of Artistic Director for Bell Shakespeare, and all that entails. I look forward to taking audiences of all ages, from all corners of Australia on a journey through Shakespeare’s timeless world with us.”

The 2016 programme will feature a collection of plays that delve into love, despair and the foibles of humanity.

Romeo And Juliet will open the year, exploring the violence and heart ache in the legendary tale of the star-crossed lovers set against a once lavish city. Kelly Paterniti returns to Bell Shakespeare after 2015’s As You Like It as the wide-eyed ingénue Juliet, paired with Alex Williams (Underground: The Julian Assange Story, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart) in the role of Romeo.

Ten years after penning Romeo And Juliet, Shakespeare wrote Othello, a starkly contrasting play that explores the destructive power of jealousy and whispered rumours. Othello is a journey of malicious passion, fuelled by one of Shakespeare’s ultimate villains, the conniving Iago. Starring Ray Nee Chong as Othello (Bell Shakespeare’s The Dream, MTC’s I Call My Brothers) and Yalin Ozucelik as Iago (Bell Shakespeare’s Henry IV, STC’s Cyrano de Bergerac), in one of Shakespeare’s most captivating pairings, this epic tragedy will rage across Australia for Bell Shakespeare’s 2016 National Tour.

After the unbridled fun of 2014’s hilarious and critically acclaimed production of Tartuffe, Bell Shakespeare will return to the work of Molière - France’s answer to Shakespeare. In a new partnership, Griffin Theatre Company and Bell Shakespeare will present The Literati, a new translation of Les Femme Savants by Justin Fleming. Directed by Griffin’s Artistic Director Lee Lewis and featuring Bell Shakespeare’s Writing Fellow and frequent collaborator, Kate Mulvany (Tartuffe and Julius Caesar) The Literati will see the text brought screaming into the 21st century with its cutting satire of the high-brow elite.

Romeo And Juliet and Othello will be accompanied by a free In Conversation with the director hosting a number of the cast and creative team, offering audiences a peek behind the curtain for unique and illuminating insights on the productions.

2016 will also herald a renewed commitment to Bell Shakespeare’s learning programmes, bringing the works to students in classrooms and theatres across the country. A new team of eight actors will tour the country in the 10 month Actors At Work tour taking 50-minute adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays to students in every state, including regional and remote communities. Students in Sydney, Melbourne and, for the first time Perth, will have the opportunity to visit their city’s premier theatres for a restaging of the 2013 and 2014 success, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by James Evans.

Bell Shakespeare Season 2016

What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet Act 2, Scene 2

Bell Shakespeare’s 2016 season will open with one of the greatest love stories ever told, Romeo And Juliet, directed by Peter Evans.

Romeo And Juliet is the classic tale of forbidden love blooming in the rubble of an unending battle. A tale of a chance meeting, love at first sight, the passion of youth and ancient feuds spilling blood.

Peter Evans said, “It’s not an accident that my first programme as Artistic Director for Bell Shakespeare I chose one of Shakespeare’s most evocative romantic tragedies, Romeo And Juliet. One of Shakespeare’s greatest virtues is that he allows us to wear our emotion on our sleeve. He provides us with the timeless poetry that pierces through the silence of modern manners.”

The star-cross’d lovers will be played by Alex Williams (Underground: The Julian Assange Story, INXS: Never Tear Us Apart) and Kelly Paterniti (Bell Shakespeare’s As You Like It, Griffin Theatre Company’s Emerald City) with Michael Gupta, Angie Milliken, Tom Stokes, Damien Strouthos and Jacob Warner.

Anna Cordingley’s (Bell Shakespeare’s Tartuffe, Macbeth) lavish costumes and set will reimagine the world of Verona with a distinct nod to a time long past creating a unique, modern production… with fabulous frocks!

Romeo And Juliet will open in February at Sydney Opera House before touring to Canberra Theatre Centre and Arts Centre Melbourne

By William Shakespeare Director Peter Evans Designer Anna Cordingley Composer & Sound Designer Kelly Ryall Fight & Movement Director Nigel Poulton With Michelle Doake, Michael Gupta, Angie Milliken, Kelly Paterniti, Hazem Shammas, Tom Stokes, Damien Strouthos, Jacob Warner, Alex Williams

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE Previews 20 – 23 February Season 24 February – 27 March In Conversation with the Director 28 February 1pm – 2pm (free event)

CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE Preview 1 April Season 2 - 9 April In Conversation with the Director Venue: Hotel Hotel 3 April 1pm – 2pm (free event)

ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE Preview 14 April Season 15 April – 1 May In Conversation with the Director 17 April 1pm – 2pm (free event)

O, beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-ey’d monster, which doth mock The meat it feeds on Act 3 Scene 3

In a devastating exploration of the battle between love and jealousy, Peter Evans will direct the tragedy of Othello, touring nationally from July 2016.

The triumphant general Othello returns from battle with the gratitude of the state – and the love of Desdemona - who defies social convention and her father’s will to marry him. Jealousies around their match and Othello’s rise to prominence simmer to the surface, causing destructive rifts in a story that piles secret upon secret, and betrayal upon betrayal.

Othello’s ensign, Iago, harbours a deeply held resentment and the marriage is fatally undermined by the insinuations of a master manipulator.

Othello is a saga that probes the human capacity for petty jealousies and revenge while revelling in the sheer wickedness of malicious manipulations.

Starring Ray Chong Nee as Othello (Bell Shakespeare’s The Dream, MTC’s I Call My Brothers) and Yalin Ozucelik as Iago (Bell Shakespeare’s Henry IV, STC’s Cyrano de Bergerac) in one of Shakespeare’s most captivating and implosive pairings.

Othello will open in July 2016 at Arts Centre Melbourne and tour to 27 centres nationally.

By William Shakespeare Director Peter Evans Designer Michael Hankin Lighting Designer Paul Jackson Assistant Director & Fight Director Nigel Poulton With Ray Chong Nee, Joanna Downing, Alice Keohavong, James Lugton, Huw McKinnon, Elizabeth Nabben, Yalin Ozucelik, Michael Wahr

ARTS CENTRE MELBOURNE Preview 12 – 13 July Season 14 – 23 July In Conversation with the Director 17 July 1pm – 2pm (free event)

CANBERRA THEATRE CENTRE Preview 14 October Season 15 – 22 October In Conversation with the Director 16 October 1pm – 2pm (free event)

SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE Previews 25 – 26 October Season 27 October – 4 December In Conversation with the Director 30 October 1pm – 2pm (free event)

“Fleming’s adaptation is as sophisticated as it is bracing. He has ripped into Molière’s original with gusto, whisking us off on a hysterical journey of rhyming verse” The Guardian (for Tartuffe)

In an exciting collaboration, Bell Shakespeare and Griffin Theatre Company will join forces to present the world premiere of The Literati, by Justin Fleming after Molière’s Les Femmes Savantes.

Juliet and Clinton are in love. Guileless, sweet, all-encompassing love. But love is not without impediments. Standing in the way of their eternal happiness are Juliet’s mother and sister, whose disapproval is of the most high-brow kind.

Following Bell Shakespeare’s critically acclaimed 2014 season of Tartuffe, also by Fleming after Molière, The Literati will see the text placed firmly in modern day Sydney with linguistic dexterity, wicked wit and ridiculous rhymes.

Skewering haughty pretention in a deliciously satirical fashion, The Literati will be directed by Griffin Theatre’s Artistic Director Lee Lewis and feature Kate Mulvany (Bell Shakespeare’s Tartuffe and Julius Caesar)

By Justin Fleming after Molière’s Les Femmes Savantes Director Lee Lewis With Kate Mulvany

SBW STABLES THEATRE 27-31 May 1 June

In 2016, learning programmes and activities will continue to be core to Bell Shakespeare.

A renewed programme of professional development workshops and opportunities for teachers in 2016 will see the first Regional Teacher Mentorship, supported by the Australian Government. Thirty teachers from regional and remote Australian schools will travel to Bell Shakespeare’s rehearsal studios in Sydney for a week of intensive workshops designed to build their skills and confidence in teaching Shakespeare and address the unique challenges of teaching Shakespeare in regional and remote schools. When they return to school they will be mentored by Bell Shakespeare Arts Educators throughout the year and supported with programmes such as Actors At Work shows, Artist in Residence and Student Masterclasses.

High school students in Sydney, Melbourne and, for the first time, Perth, through a new partnership with University of Western Australia, will be able to attend the restaging of the critically acclaimed, in-theatre schools production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by James Evans. The production will be supported online with free digital resources, a live-streamed Q&A and Professional Learning sessions for teachers.

Two new teams of four actors will join Bell Shakespeare for the 10-month Actors at Work tour, visiting schools in every state of Australia, including regional and remote communities. Students will be treated to Such Sweet Sorrow, Hamlet: Out Of Joint (secondary) and Bottom’s Dream (primary), 50-minute interpretations of Romeo & Juliet, Hamlet and A Midsummer Night’s Dream interspersed with contemporary references and modern commentary.

School groups will also have access to matinees performances across all three mainstage shows; Romeo And Juliet, The Literati and Othello at some of Australia’s premier venues. Students from regional schools who attend Othello will be offer complimentary workshops as part of the Regional Access Programme.

Offered in-schools, Student Masterclasses provide a two-hour primer on one of Shakespeare’s plays, or a general ‘Introduction to Shakespeare’ class for students tackling Shakespeare for the first time. The practical, interactive sessions are tailored for each class and allow Bell Shakespeare artists to guide students through the original text to understand the plays from the inside out.

The Artist in Residence programme sees Bell Shakespeare educators spend up to 2 weeks in a school or community conducting a tailored programme of workshops and activities, developed in consultation with the school. Residencies take place across Australia from capital cities to regional and remote schools.

Bell Shakespeare Learning is one of Australia’s most extensive, comprehensive and wide-reaching education programmes. Over one million Australian schoolchildren have seen a Bell Shakespeare production, since the Company was founded.

Bell Shakespeare Learning

To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. Hamlet

In 2016 Peter Evans ascends as only the second Artistic Director of Bell Shakespeare in 26 years, after sharing the role of Co-Artistic Director with John Bell since 2012. An enthusiastic classicist, he was the first person to share the Artistic Director title and duties since the company was founded in 1990, and was handpicked by Bell to co-lead Australia’s foremost Shakespearean and classical theatre company.

Evans began his career directing at the University of Auckland, before moving to Australia to study at Sydney’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA). At the young age of 25, Bell invited Evans to assist Steven Berkoff, the legendary English director, writer and actor, who was about to direct Bell in Coriolanus in 1996. Subsequently Evans was asked to direct Macbeth for Bell Shakespeare’s first regional tour in 1997, which aided in establishing the Company’s national ambitions.

While studying at NIDA, Evans worked at Sydney’s Belvoir Street Theatre with Neil Armfield on The Tempest and The Blind Giant Is Dancing. Later he assisted Wayne Harrison on the world premiere of David Williamson’s The Heretic at the Sydney Opera House.

Moving to Melbourne in the late 1990s, Evans worked as a freelance director for Bell Shakespeare (Two Gentleman of Verona, The Tempest), Melbourne’s Malthouse Theatre (Yellow Wall Paper) and the Queensland Theatre Company (The Daylight Atheist). He then spent four years as Associate Director at Melbourne Theatre Company and directed Clybourne Park, A Behanding in Spokane, Life Without Me, Dead Man’s Cell Phone, The Ugly One, God of Carnage, Savage River (co-production with Griffin Theatre Company) Realism, The Hypocrite, Blackbird, Don Juan in Soho, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The History Boys, Don’s Party, The Give and Take, Dumbshow, and The Daylight Atheist.

Peter’s directing credits also include Pygmalion, The Grenade, The Great, Fat Pig, and The Give and Take (Sydney Theatre Company); Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, King Lear, Copenhagen, Proof, Muldoon, and The Christian Brothers (New Zealand’s Court Theatre), Jesus Hopped the A Train (Red Stitch Actors Theatre); A Poor Student for the Store Room (Malthouse Theatre); Sexual Perversity in Chicago (Theatre Jamb at the Bondi Pavilion); Kiss of the Spiderwoman (Theatre Adami at the Stables) and The Dumb Waiter (Studio Company at Belvoir St Theatre).

In 2010, Evans returned to Bell Shakespeare and has since directed new versions of Julius Caesar (2011), Macbeth (2012), Phèdre (2013), The Dream (2014), Tarfuffe (2014) and As You Like It (2015).

Artistic Director Peter Evans

MEDIA ENQUIRIESFor all media enquiries, including interviews and images, please contact:

Jane Davis National Publicist P: 02 8298 9063 M: 0411 562 131 E: janed@bellshakespeare.com.au

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