Shakespeare’s Globe has this morning announced the new 2019/20 Season in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse: She Wolves and Shrews, a celebration and interrogation of women, power, and the role of the feminine in shaping our past, present and future.
The candlelit Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will play host to the world premiere of Ella Hickson’s new play, Swive [Elizabeth], directed by Natalie Abrahami, as well as revivals of Shakespeare’s Henry VI and Richard III, both directed by Sean Holmes and Ilinca Radulian, and featuring the Globe Ensemble.
The Globe Ensemble includes: Sarah Amankwah, Philip Arditti, Nina Bowers, Jonathan Broadbent, Leaphia Darko, Steffan Donnelly, Colin Hurley, Sophie Russell, and Helen Schlesinger.
Other productions include: The Taming of the Shrew, directed by Maria Gaitanidi and performed by an ensemble cast comprising Lila Clements, Mattia Mariotti, Melissa Riggall and Globe Artistic Director, Michelle Terry, and Thomas Middleton’s enduringly relevant classic, Women Beware Women, which will be directed by Amy Hodge and play in repertory with The Taming of the Shrew.
Other new announcements include: Christmas at the (Snow) Globe, a song and laughter-filled family show created and directed by Sandi Toksvig and Jenifer Toksvig; Deep Night, Dark Night: Tales from Beyond the Grave, a series of candlelit ghost stories including a newly commissioned tale by Jeanette Winterson, Victorian stories and true tales of ghosts of London; and a double bill of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and her lesser known paper, Three Guineas on 28 November 2019, marking the centenary year since the removal of the sex disqualification act, and Nancy Astor becoming the first female MP.
The Globe’s Voices in the Dark series will continue in January and February with Notes to the Forgotten She Wolves, a collection of performances shedding candlelight on the women who have so far remained in darkness in a world history dominated by stories about men, by men.
A special Read Not Dead performance of the recently rediscovered Restoration comedy, The Dutch Lady, will take place at Gray’s Inn on 20 October 2019, adhering to the usual Read Not Dead ground rules in which actors receive the play on Sunday morning and present it, script-in-hand, to an audience later in the afternoon.
Alongside family performances of Macbeth and Christmas at the (Snow) Globe, families can enjoy special tours of the Globe and the half term edition of the Globe’s family storytelling festival, Half Term Tales at the Globe, which returns in October. The week of performances, workshops and author events which will explore all things magical, and the line-up includes the new Children’s Laureate, Cressida Cowell, illustrator Chris Riddell, storyteller Kevin Graal and authors Sophie Anderson, Abi Elphinstone and Piers Torday.
For more information on the new productions, and to explore the full season announcement, please Click Here.
