The Dream Celebrates 25 Years of Shakespeare in Melbourne Gardens.
This summer will mark a quarter of a century of Shakespeare in Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens. To celebrate the 25th Anniversary, the Australian Shakespeare Company will remount A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the first play performed in 1988, that over the decades has proven to be Melbourne’s favourite Shakespeare under the stars.
The season runs from 21 December 2013 to 15 March 2014.
Since the very first performance, an amazing array of talented actors have traipsed the boards under the trees in Glenn Elston’s Shakespeare adaptations. Guy Pearce played Lysander in 1993, Tim Minchin performed in Twelfth Night, and Kate Kendall played Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, while Nadine Garner played the very first Juliet at the age of 20 in 1995. Other well- known Australian actors who have performed with the company include Marcus Graham, Rhys Muldoon, Genevieve Lemon, John Wood, Nicholas Eadie, Richard Piper, Merridy Eastman, Di Smith, Tracey Mann, Andrew Blackman, David Davies, Ross Williams and Syd Brisbane.
The Australian Shakespeare Company have toured all over the country to places as remote as Annabangbang Billabong in Kakadu National Park, Weipa on Cape York, and was the first theatre company to tour to Thursday Island with a musical production of Much Ado About Nothing. In 2003, the company began working with Djilpin Arts to coproduce Walking with Spirits, a corroboree on the remote sacred site of Malkgulumbu (Beswick Falls) in the Northern Territory.
For summer 2013/2014 Glenn Elston will present a new adaptation of William
Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, featuring a young cast of lovers as well as the Australian Shakespeare Company’s troupe of regulars.
“You might think I’d be sick of it by now, but it has been truly amazing to spend over two decades of summers in Melbourne’s gardens making theatre with such an array of talented artists,” says Director Glenn Elston.
“I won’t say it hasn’t been trying at times, performing in Melbourne’s weather, up against wind, rain and fire, but we have always pulled through. What makes it so fulfilling is to hear how our productions have become such treasured summer memories for our audiences and all those involved.”
This year, audiences will be transported to the world of the woods beyond Athens, a place of tangled loves, mistaken identity, mischievous faeries and magic-potions. Melburnians and visitors alike are invited into the magical world of The Dream, down the garden path into the faery glen where they will be enchanted by The Duke, Titania, Puck, Bottom and all their faery friends.
Who knows what could happen when the fairies cast their spells? You might even fall in love anew or maybe all over again…
Tales of outdoor theatre adventure from Director Glenn Elston…
• “During one production in 1997, when Kim Wilson was playing Juliet, we had decided to use real fruit in the marketplace baskets. We had to stop the balcony scene because the possums had decided to hold a possum picnic party on the carts, much to the delight of the audience. One discovered the fruit and quickly we had ten possums making a cameo in Romeo & Juliet!”
• “In the first production of The Dream in Melbourne’s gardens in 1988, we built a bridge just under the surface of the water going out to Sayce Island in Central Lake. It was a magical effect for when the faeries made their final exit, walking on water to disappear into the foliage of the island. All went well…until one night when the king of the faeries slipped and went tumbling into the lake! To preserve the remaining shreds of the illusion the other faeries continued on…leaving Oberon to exhume himself from the mud, get back up onto the bridge and stumble along unceremoniously looking more like a mud zombie than a faery king!”
• “When Sydney’s north was burning with bushfires, we were performing in the Royal Botanic Gardens with a production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Behind us, across the harbour, you could see the glow of the fire. During the opening speech with the flame faery and Philostrate a fireman appeared to check whether we were using a naked flame. We were so worried about the fire and the people that might be affected, but we had paying audiences we couldn’t let down. It was a surreal experience.”
• “A possum came down from a tree onto the stage one night hugely upstaging the actor. The actor stopped mid-sentence and said he refused to continue until he saw it’s equity card. The possum made its exit stage left.”
• “Putting away the lights on the ground one night in Sydney a crew member screamed when he picked up a light and it was “alive”. He looked into the par can light and behind the coloured lighting gel there was a possum looking back at him. He let the unhappy possum out who gave itself a shake up and scampered off with a tanned bottom!”
• “One year a 2.5 metre brown snake enjoyed a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Darwin Amphitheatre, then decided to leave with the 800 strong audience. As it approached the one narrow path everyone was beginning to file down someone called ‘snake!’ and in true NT fashion nobody panicked, the crowd promptly parted like water for Moses, letting the snake leave in a dignified manner to slither off for his dinner.”
Details
Dates: 21 December 2013 - 15 March 2014
Location: Southern Cross Lawn, Royal Botanic Gardens Melbourne
Enter through the Observatory Gate on Birdwood Avenue directly adjacent to the Shrine Of Remembrance. Gates open 90 minutes prior to performance time.
Times: December 21 2013 to 1 February 2014
Tuesday to Sunday at 8.30pm (no shows 24, 25 and 26 December and 26, 27, 28 & 29 January)
February 6 2014 to February 8 2014
Thursday to Saturday at 8pm
February 11 2014 to March 15 2014
Tuesday to Saturday at 8pm
Tickets: Prices ranging from $25-$45
03 8676 7511 or online at www.shakespeareaustralia.com.au or Ticketmaster 136 100
Early bird specials available until 6 December via www.shakespeareaustralia.com.au
Cash sales are available at the on-site box office unless sold out, box office opens one hour prior to each performance.
What to bring: Pack a picnic full of goodies you like to eat and drink, a blanket or cushions to sit on and insect repellent.