Theatre News

Allam, Buckley, Morgan & Millson star in Globe 2013 season

Dominic Dromgoole, artistic director of Shakespeare’s Globe, has today (7 February 2013) announced further details of the venue’s 2013 programme, titled “season of plenty” and themed around the supernatural.

Joining the previously announced Roger Allam in The Tempest, which runs from 23 April to 18 August directed by Jeremy Herrin, will be Colin Morgan as Ariel and Jessie Buckley as Miranda.

Morgan’s stage credits include Our Private Life (Royal Court) and Vernon God Little (Young Vic), and he plays the title role in Merlin (BBC). Buckley, who has just graduated after three years at RADA, has previously been seen on stage in A Little Night Music; she came second in Andrew Lloyd Webber‘s I’d Do Anything casting show.

Macbeth (22 June-13 October) will be directed by actress Eve Best and will star Joseph Millson. Best will be making her directorial debut; she was last seen at the Globe in 2011 as Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, for which she was nominated for a Whatsonstage.com Award. Her other stage credits include The Duchess of Malfi (Old Vic) and Hedda Gabler (Almeida). Millson’s stage credits include Rocket to the Moon (National) and Love Never Dies (Adelphi).

In Dromgoole’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (24 May-12 October), Michelle Terry will play Titania. Her stage credits include In the Republic of Happiness (Royal Court), The Comedy of Errors and London Assurance (National). She has previously appeared at the Globe in Love Labour’s Lost.

Elsewhere in the season, Globe to Globe productions of Venus & Adonis, As You Like It and The Tempest will return, and a site-specific production of the Henry VI trilogy will bring the plays to the new Globe for the first time before going on to tour historic Wars of the Roses battle sites.

There will also be touring productions of King Lear (starring Joseph Marcell) and The Taming of the Shrew – the latter of which will be an all-female production directed by Joe Murphy.

Three new plays will receive world premières – The Lightning Child (14 September-12 October) by Che Walker, with music by Arthur Darvill, Blue Stockings (24 August-11 October) by Jessica Swale, about the first generation of women to go to university, and Gabriel (13 July-18 August) by Samuel Adamson, a “celebration of the transporting power of the trumpet”, featuring English trumpet soloist Alison Balsom (see video).

Walker, who today called the Globe “the most radical and forward-thinking space in the country” returns to the venue, having premiered The Frontline in 2008. Adamson’s recent credits include the stage adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Theatre Royal Haymarket), while Swale is best known for her directing work, which includes The Belle’s Strategem and The Rivals at Southwark Playhouse.

2013 will also see the Globe on Screen initiative launch internationally, with the venue’s 2012 productions of Henry V, Twelfth Night and The Taming of the Shrew being beamed to cinemas in the USA, Australia and New Zealand as well as the UK. For more information visit www.globeonscreen.com

Speaking at this morning’s press launch, Dromgoole also confirmed that the new indoor Sam Wanamaker Theatre is “on track” to open in January 2014, which will see the Globe programming productions year-round for the first time.

– by Theo Bosanquet & Rosie Bannister