The Bristol Shakespeare Festival is an open-air theatre festival founded in 2004 and held annually in the parks and green spaces of the city of Bristol, as well as in both traditional and non-traditional theatre spaces in the city.
The festival is a not-for-profit organisation that claims to be the largest professional open air Shakespeare festival in the UK. [1]
Running during the month of July, the festival plays host to a wide range of theatre companies, usually presenting between seven and ten full professional productions, from across the United Kingdom.
The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) is a major British theatre company, based in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. The company employs over 1,000 staff and produces around 20 productions a year. The RSC plays regularly in London, Stratford-upon-Avon, and on tour across the UK and internationally.
The Oregon Shakespeare Festival (OSF) is a regional repertory theatre in Ashland, Oregon, United States, founded in 1935 by Angus L. Bowmer. The Festival now offers matinee and evening performances of a wide range of classic and contemporary plays not limited to Shakespeare. During the Festival, between five and eleven plays are offered in daily rotation six days a week in its three theatres. It welcomed its millionth visitor in 1971, its 10-millionth in 2001, and its 20-millionth visitor in 2015. At any given time between five and eleven plays are offered in daily rotation six days a week in its three theatres.
Bristol Old Vic is a British theatre company based at the Theatre Royal, Bristol. The present company was established in 1946 as an offshoot of the Old Vic in London. It is associated with the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, which became a financially independent organisation in the 1990s. Bristol Old Vic runs a Young Company for those aged 7–25.
Louise Jameson is an English actress with a wide variety of television and theatre credits. Her roles on television have included playing Leela in Doctor Who (1977–1978), Dr. Anne Reynolds in The Omega Factor (1979), Blanche Simmons in Tenko (1981–1982), Susan Young in Bergerac (1985–1990) and Rosa di Marco in EastEnders (1998–2000). In 2022, she joined the cast of Emmerdale as Mary Goskirk, having previously appeared on the show in 1973.
Bard on the Beach is Western Canada's largest professional Shakespeare festival. The theatre Festival runs annually from early June through September in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The Festival is produced by Bard on the Beach Theatre Society whose mandate is to provide Vancouver residents and tourists with affordable, accessible Shakespearean productions of the finest quality. In addition to the annual summer festival, the Society runs a number of year-round theatre education and training initiatives for both the artistic community and the general community at large. Bard on the Beach celebrated its 30th anniversary season in 2019.
Shakespeare's Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse for which William Shakespeare wrote his plays, in the London Borough of Southwark, on the south bank of the River Thames. The original theatre was built in 1599, destroyed by the fire in 1613, rebuilt in 1614, and then demolished in 1644. The modern Globe Theatre is an academic approximation based on available evidence of the 1599 and 1614 buildings. It is considered quite realistic, though modern safety requirements mean that it accommodates only 1,400 spectators compared to the original theatre's 3,000.
Shakespeare in the Park is a theatrical program that stages productions of Shakespearean plays at the Delacorte Theater, an open-air theater in New York City's Central Park. The theater and the productions are managed by The Public Theater and tickets are distributed free of charge on the day of the performance. Originally branded as the New York Shakespeare Festival (NYSF) under the direction of Joseph Papp, the institution was renamed in 2002 as part of a larger reorganization by the Public Theater.
The Old Globe is a professional theatre company located in Balboa Park in San Diego, California. It produces about 15 plays and musicals annually in summer and winter seasons. Plays are performed in three separate theatres in the complex, which is collectively called the Simon Edison Centre for the Performing Arts:
Jeffery Kissoon is an actor with credits in British theatre, television, film and radio. He has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company at venues such as the Royal National Theatre, under directors including Peter Brook, Peter Hall, Robert Lepage, Janet Suzman, Calixto Bieito and Nicholas Hytner. He has acted in genres from Shakespeare and modern theatre to television drama and science fiction, playing a range of both leading and supporting roles, from Mark Antony in Antony and Cleopatra and Prospero and Caliban in The Tempest, to Malcolm X in The Meeting and Mr Kennedy in the children's TV series Grange Hill.
Bristol is a city in South West England. As the largest city in the region it is a centre for the arts and sport. The region has a distinct West Country dialect.
Lynn Farleigh is an English actress of stage and screen.
Maxine Audley was an English theatre and film actress. She made her professional stage debut in July 1940 at the Open Air Theatre. Audley performed with the Old Vic company and the Royal Shakespeare Company many times. She appeared in more than 20 films, the first of which was the 1948 adaptation of Anna Karenina.
Raza Jaffrey is an English actor and singer, who starred as Neal Hudson on the CBS TV medical drama Code Black. He is best known for playing Zafar Younis on the BBC One spy drama series Spooks. In 2014, he played Pakistani Lieutenant Colonel Aasar Khan in season 4 of the Showtime series Homeland.
Steven Rumbelow, was a director in the entertainment industry for more than four decades. He began in theatre at the Bristol Old Vic, subsequently becoming the youngest director for the Royal Shakespeare Company in London before forming Triple Action Theatre and then later starting on films. His career has been a melange between media productions and theatre ever since. Rumbelow operated his own production company in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Renegade Motion Pictures, with his wife, Rachel, until his sudden death from sepsis on 27 February 2016.
The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey is one of the largest professional Shakespeare companies in North America, serving over 100,000 adults and children annually. Located in Madison, New Jersey, it is the state's largest theatre company dedicated to the works of Shakespeare and other classic masterworks, including rarely produced epics not often produced by other theatres.
Shakespeare in the Park is a term for outdoor festivals featuring productions of William Shakespeare's plays. The term originated with the New York Shakespeare Festival in New York City's Central Park, originally created by Joseph Papp. This concept has been adapted by many theatre companies, and over time, this name has expanded to encompass outdoor theatre productions of the playwright's works performed all over the world.
David Farr is a British writer, theatrical director and Associate Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company.
Richard Cottrell is an English theatre director. He has been the Director of the Cambridge Theatre Company and the Bristol Old Vic in England, and of the Nimrod Theatre in Sydney, Australia. He has also directed for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Chichester Festival, the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, Ontario, the National Theatre of Portugal, and other theatre companies around the world.
The Bierkeller Theatre was a theatre in Broadmead, Bristol, England, located inside Bristol's oldest night club, the Bristol Bierkeller.
Andrew Piers Marsden Hilton is an English actor, theatre director, and author best known for the creation of the Shakespeare at the Tobacco Factory company in Bristol 1999 - 2021.