Shakespeare's Globe announces 2015 Season

Dom O'Hanlon
Dom O'Hanlon

The Shakespeare's Globe Theatre on London's South Bank has announced its 2015 season, which will be the final season for Artistic Director Dominic Droomgoole.

Following 2014's 'Arms and the Man' programme, The Summer 2015 season will be constructed around the theme 'Justice and Mercy'. The season will probe the strengths and weaknesses of judicial law and the various tugs-of-war between family, state, religion, love, sex and duty that have defined human morality for centuries.

The season begins with a production of The Merchant of Venice, which runs from 23 April to 7 June 2015, with an official opening on 30 April 2015. This will be directed by Jonathan Munby who returns to The Globe after directing 'Antony & Cleopatra' starring Eve Best this summer.

Blanche McIntyre will direct the comedy As You Like It which runs from 15 May to 5 September 2015, with an official opening on 20 May 2015.

This will be followed by a collaboration between Shakespeare's Globe and the Royal & Derngate theatre, who will present a touring production of King John, which will run at the Globe from 1 to 28 June. Directed by James Dacre, this new production will see a large company of actors and musicians explore a tangled world of ruthless politicking and fatal power struggles. It will also visit the Holy Sepulchre Church (a frequent haunt of King John and his court) in Northampton, and Temple Church, the church of Inner and Middle Temple in London.

Dominic Dromgoole's new production of Measure for Measure will then run at the venue from 20 June to 17 October 2015, with an official opening on 1 July 2015. This will be his final production as Artistic Director of the venue - a role which he enjoyed since 2006.

This will be followed by Richard II, directed by Simon Godwin which runs from 11 July to 18 October 2015, with an official opening on 22 July 2015.

The summer's new writing season will begin with Helen Edmundson's The Heresy of Love, a telling of the life of seventeenth-century Mexican nun and playwright Juana Inés de la Cruz, which premiered at the RSC in 2012. This will run from 31 July to 5 September 2015 with an official opening on 5 August 2015.

Adele Thomas will direct a contemporary distillation of all three plays from Aeschylus's Oresteia which will run from 29 August to 16 October 2015, with a press night on 2 September 2015. Known as one of the great cornerstones of Western drama, the Oresteia dramatises the shift away from the 'natural law' of the individual blood vendetta and towards a self-governing polis founded on principles of fair trial and punishment.

The final Globe production of the season will be Jessica Swale's Nell Gwynn which charts the rise of brilliant wit and charmer Nell Gwynn - from lowly satsuma-seller in the pit, to leading actress on the stage, to King's escort in the Royal Box. This runs from 19 September to 17 October 2015, with an official opening on 24 September 2015.

Two visiting companies will once again bring foreign language productions of Shakespeare's classic to the venue, beginning with the return of The National Theatre of China's Richard III in Mandarin which runs from 20 to 25 July 2015. This is later followed by the Hong Kong's Tang Shu-wing Theatre Studio production of Macbeth in Cantonese which runs from 17 to 23 August 2015.

Casting and exact schedules for all productions is yet to be announced.

Tickets for the 2015 season will go on general sale on Monday 9 February 2015.

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