CASTING is confirmed, rehearsals are underway and tickets are on sale for York company Well-fangled Theatre’s playful new production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Friargate Theatre, York, from July 21 to 23.

The ensemble for Mark France's "innovative, gender-fluid take on Shakespeare’s classic comedy" will be Josie Campbell; Amy Fincham; Anna Rose James; Patricia Jones; Bill Laughey; Jamie McKeller; Claire Morley and Hattie Patten-Chatfield.

All the actors will take on multiple roles, some in surprising combinations. “There’s been some really interesting approaches to casting Shakespeare in the last couple of years, both nationally and locally, and at the same time there’s been a massive leap forward in the way many people now talk about gender," says Mark, who is joined in the production team by designer Simon Jarvis and assistant director Nick Newman.

"A Midsummer Night’s Dream offers such rich potential for creative interpretation that I thought it would be really theatrically exciting to stage the play in a way that was a little bit more gender-fluid than normal. So we’ve cast actors cross-gender, we’ve re-gendered some characters, and, for a few, the world is maybe a little less binary than we might expect."

Explaining this directorial decision, Mark says: "The play is all about identity: how the word defines us and how we define ourselves; how we perform that identity; how we sacrifice our sense of self when we are in love, and how we can lose it involuntarily under the influence of others.

"All this has led to a really playful approach to rehearsals, which we believe is going to lead to a production that is original and exhilarating to watch, while still retaining all the warmth, comedy and romance that audiences expect form this classic play.”

Tickets for the 7.30pm evening shows and 2.30pm Saturday matinee are on sale at £12, concessions £8, on 01904 613000 or at ridinglights.org/midsummer-nights-dream/