York International Shakespeare Festival, May 8 to 17

The cast of the Flanagan Collective’s Romeo And Juliet have assembled at St Olave’s Church, Marygate, York, joined by members of the cast of York Shakespeare Project’s Timon Of Athens and the University of York DramSoc’s Richard III to mark the first time an International Shakespeare Festival will be taking place in the north of England.

Romeo And Juliet’s producer, Brian Hook, said: “We couldn’t be happier to be premiering this production in York. It will, we hope, take us across the UK and a little further around the world too, but it feels absolutely right to be making the show here in our home city as part of the York International Shakespeare Festival. We’re raising a glass to Mr. Shakespeare on his birthday, you can be sure of that.”

York International Shakespeare Festival is brought about through an adventurous new partnership between York Theatre Royal, the community arts organisation Parrabbola and the University of York and will takes place from May 8 to 17 at venues across York. Combining traditional retellings and original responses from York and international production companies, the festival will explore the impact of Shakespeare more than 400 years after his final play.

YSP’s Timon Of Athens, directed by Ruby Clarke, will run from May 14 to 17 in the De Grey Rooms Ballroom at 7.30pm with a 2.30pm matinee on Saturday; the university’s Richard III will take place on May 16 in the Guildhall Council Chambers at 5pm.

Further details of the festival will appear in What’s On up to May 14. The full programme can be found at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk; tickets for all productions are on sale now through the same website or on 01904 623568.

Romeo reinvented

So how do you stage Romeo And Juliet with an all-female cast of six? Director Alexander Wright says he just chose the best six people regardless of gender, writes CHARLES HUTCHINSON

THE Flanagan Collective’s take on Shakespeare’s teenage tragedy, Romeo And Juliet, at the first York International Shakespeare Festival will buckle together two of the York company’s trademark twists.

Not only is artistic director Alexander Wright’s cast comprised solely of a sextet of women, but the 1597 play also will be performed in the 15th century setting of St Olave’s Church, in Marygate, York, from May 7 to 23 in a show presented in association with York Theatre Royal.

The cast for The Flanagan Collective’s Romeo And Juliet: back row, from left, Sarah Davies, Holly Beasley Garrigan and Hannah Davies; front row, Yoshika Colwell, Amie Burns Walker and Emma Ballantine

Wright’s cast assembled last month for the first read-through at The Fleeting Arms on Gillygate, an ambitious new venue run by the Flanagan Collective as a temporary café bar and pop-up space for performances, rehearsals, workshops and auditions.

Directed by Wright, produced by Brian Hook and performed Holly Beasley Garrigan, Hannah Davies, Sarah Davies, Yoshika Colwell, Amie Burns Walker and Emma Ballantine, this contemporary rendition of Romeo And Juliet will be “infused with live music, soaring harmonies and good, honest storytelling”.

“We want to make this a show for people, for communities and for social and sacred spaces,” says Alexander. “For a few hours we want this stunning building to be about young romance, about recklessness and about the sheer relevance of falling in love. We want to doff our caps to all those who have loved, lost or got stranded along the way. This is not a story of fate; for us it is a story of passion and energy and wearing our hearts on our sleeves.”

Producer Brian Hook reveals the all-female company started as a political choice.

“Our industry doesn’t give a fair representation to women on stage –we’re as guilty of that as anyone else – so we wanted to do something about it. But each time we chat and talk, it gets more and more exciting. There’s a lot of imagination, energy and adventure on the way.”

Alexander has a further reasoning behind the all-female casting. “I’d far rather ask the best six people to do it, regardless of their gender, rather than casting it just because the script says ‘he’. Gender is not the issue in this play,” he says.

“The reasoning is, I think, that I’ve come to realise that anyone in charge of an arts organisation – of which I have reluctantly noticed I am – should do as much as they can to balance the on-going disparity in the number of female parts, female playwrights. The rest of us, who are able to make a difference, have an absolute duty to try and lead the way and enlarge the norm.

“What one can’t do is rewrite Shakespeare to have women in his plays, but what we do have to be is open-minded enough, empathetic enough and intelligent enough with a story like Romeo And Juliet for it to be read with the same passion and aggression and love and tragedy, regardless of the gender divide in that story.”

Taking this point further, Alexander says: “It’s not that I decry all-male versions, but politically and vocally, it’s more important that we try to sort out inequality than artistically we worry about the difference between a male and female Mercutio.

“I’m doing it for that reason, not because someone might come to see it as it’s all-female, but because it’s two people falling in love too quickly and getting carried away by it, and all that youthful energy being let down by their elders carrying grudges. The tragedy of it is the young generation falling foul of their families’ hatred and the long-term damage that creates.”

•Tickets for 7.30pm shows (no Sundays) and 2.30pm matinees can be booked at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk or on 01904 623568.

Barrie Rutter as King Lear and Catherine Kinsella as Cordelia

Only One Question for... Barrie Rutter, who plays Lear in Northern Broadsides’ King Lear

What will be the significance of holding next month’s York International Shakespeare Festival?

“It’s all to the good to have this festival, because while it’s possible to indulge in the quasi-scholarship that surrounds Shakespeare, these are plays that were meant to be performed. You’re entitled to study him, but ultimately it’s about the performing of his plays.

“You think, ‘400 years ago in King Lear he was putting on stage presciently what we now know as hallucinatory dementia’. He didn’t have an answer but he recognised it, and Jonathan Miller, our director for this production, says, ‘we go to the theatre to recognise what we already know but have forgotten about’.”

• Northern Broadsides present Jonathan Miller’s production of King Lear at the TFTV Main Stage, University of York, May 12 to 16, 7.30pm plus 2.30pm Saturday matinee.