Lakespeare and Company founder
Taimus Werner-Gibbings says following the success in January of Shakespeare by
the Lakes' free production of Much Ado About Nothing, the company will return
next summer with another comedy by William Shakespeare. It, too, will be free.
Stage and screen actor/director
Christopher Stollery has been attached to direct Twelfth Night. Werner-Gibbings
says, "It's probably Shakespeare's best romantic comedy and it fits in
with the outdoor, summery, pastorally vibe we're trying to give people."
Werner-Gibbings was inspired by
events like New York's Shakespeare in the Park. He says of the inaugural
production of Much Ado, directed by and starring Lexi Sekuless and Duncan
Driver, "I was hoping there would be more people in the audience than in
the cast."
It succeeded well beyond that.
Much Ado About Nothing had an audience of 4230 people over its four-night run
from February 14 to 17. There were 780 at the first night in Tuggeranong Town
Park and 670 at the second; 1850 at Glebe Park in Civic; and 930 at Queen
Elizabeth Park in Queanbeyan. As well as Driver and Sekuless, Werner-Gibbings
had Paul Leverenz as production and stage manager. This core group will return.
Much Ado cost $28,000 to mount.
Members of the public donated $14,000 and several corporate sponsors came on
board to help bring the project to life.
Now that Shakespeare by the Lakes has proven itself, Werner-Gibbings
hopes artsAct will provide support for next year's production.
We've put in an application for a
grant; we have a better product to sell and experience."
Some of last year's corporate
sponsors have returned, new ones are coming on board, and he is looking for
others.
There are some differences this
time. Lakespeare and Company is now an unincorporated association with a few
thousand dollars left over from last time to put towards the next production.
Driver and Sekuless will focus their energies on acting this time: they and the
rest of the cast (yet to be finalised) will work under Stollery's direction.
Stollery says, "It's all
happening."
He is a graduate of the National
Institute of Dramatic Art and the Australian Film Television & Radio School
who has worked with Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir Street and the Ensemble and
appeared in TV series including Sea Patrol and The Flying Doctors.
Stollery was an associate artist
for 15 years with the Bell Shakespeare Company, appearing in 12 of its productions in such roles as Hamlet,
Petruchio and Mark Antony and directing for its educational section. Twelfth
Night will mark his first time directing a mainstage production.
Stollery met Sekuless in London in
2012 while he was touring in the Sydney Theatre Company's production Big and
Little with Cate Blanchett and kept in touch with her. Although he didn't get
to see last year's Much Ado About Nothing, he says its reception "shows
how ready Canberra audiences are to embrace something like this".
Stollery says Twelfth Night's
theme of gender reversal - with the shipwrecked character Viola disguising
herself as a man to search for her twin brother Sebastian - is "very
current". He notes that the Feast
of Twelfth Night in Elizabethan times was a time of revelry, when servants and their masters and men and
women swapped roles, and this period of
disorder is represented by, among others,
the comic characters of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek. They conspire to torment the steward
Malvolio, who is a stickler for order.
It's too early for him to comment
specifically on his plans for the Canberra production. But he's been in outdoor
plays and says in terms of acting in such performances, "You've got to
really go for it," adopting a range and style that is "unashamed and
bold".
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