Winter season announced in Shakespeare’s Globe’s Sam Wanamaker Playhouse

Shakespeare's Globe has announced the winter season in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will feature a number of productions by the Bard and his Elizabethan counterpart Christopher Marlowe.  

Sheffield Theatre's AD Robert Hastie will direct the tragedy Macbeth in November, serving as 'a timely reminder of the destruction that can result from the quest for power'. It will follow two major productions of the play in London this year after the National Theatre's presentation starring Rory Kinnear and Anne-Marie Duff, and the RSC's incoming transfer of the play to the Barbican with Christopher Eccleston. It opens on 14th November.

From 1st December, Paulette Randall will direct Marlowe's Doctor Faustus. Randall's previous London directional credits include Fences, which starred Lenny Henry in the West End, and Gem of the Ocean and Blues for Mr Charlie at the Tricycle.

From 29th December, there will be a feminine response to Faustus titled Dark Night of the Soul. Directed by Jude Christian, an ensemble of female writers will respond to the question 'What would you sell your soul for?', and the show is part of Refugee Week 2018.

The season will continue with productions of Marlowe's Edward II, and Shakespeare's Richard II. Directors for both plays are yet to be announced, with Edward II opening on 7th February and Richard II to open on 22nd February.

Tom Stuart's new play After Edward is a response to Marlowe's Edward II, which delves into a world of pride and shame. Stuart has appeared at the Globe as an actor, and has appeared in productions of The Broken Heart, Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing.

The Read Not Dead series will continue this year. The premise sees a cast of actors rehearse a play on a Sunday morning, and present it (with scripts in hand) later that afternoon. The plays to be presented include John Fletcher and Philip Massinger's The Little French Lawyer (28th October, at Gray's Inn, not the Sam Wanamaker) and The Tragedy of Sir John van Olden Barnavelt (18th November, at Sam Wanamaker); and George Peele's Edward I on 10th February.