While you still have a few weeks left to get your Shakespeare fix at the 2017 season of Bard on the Beach, continuing until September 23, Artistic Director Christopher Gaze has announced the lineup the Festival’s 2018 season, running from June 6 to September 22, 2018. The 29th season of Vancouver’s Shakespeare festival will include two audience favourites, a provocative reimagining of a rarely-produced drama, as well as a Greek classic, adapted to add a local, contemporary twist.
The BMO Mainstage hosts an exciting new production of As You Like It, set in Vancouver and filled with Beatles music; on alternate nights a classical production of Shakespeare’s epic drama Macbeth. Across the Bard Village at Vanier Park two new productions will be featured on the Howard Family Stage: Shakespeare’s Timon of Athens, redefined with a female-dominated cast, and a Bard-commissioned new adaptation of Lysistrata.
The overviews of the 2018 Bard on the Beach productions are:
As You Like It – It’s the 1960s, and free spirits are escaping from Vancouver to get “back to the land”. This joyful celebration of love features 20 classic Beatles songs from “I Want to Hold Your Hand” to “All You Need is Love”. You’ll leave the theatre with a song in your heart and a belief in our shared humanity! Directed by Daryl Cloran, who helmed Bard’s 2015 hit musical production of Love’s Labour’s Lost.
Macbeth – On a blasted heath in medieval Scotland, three women tell a General that he is fated to be the King of Scotland. The image takes hold in his mind, and so begins a chain of events that leads to the murder of Kings, friends, mothers and their children. Shakespeare’s great study of power and corruption is both terrifying and sublime – and has never been more relevant. Starring leading Canadian actors Ben Carlson and Moya O’Connell and directed by Crow’s Theatre Artistic Director Chris Abraham.
Timon of Athens – Colleen Wheeler stars as Timon, leading an outstanding ensemble of actors in Shakespeare’s exploration of power and greed. A parable for our times, the story is a powerful indictment of capitalism and nihilism. Meg Roe (The Tempest, 2014) directs a production that invites us to think about our place in a shallow world, and to look beyond the wealth of the pocketbook towards the wealth of the heart.
Lysistrata – It is 2018. An environmental threat hangs over Vancouver’s coastline. A company of actors respond by staging Lysistrata, Aristophanes’ outrageous comedic story of the first-ever female strike. First staged in 411 BC, this brand-new adaptation is a glorious, bawdy romp that investigates how humour and art can take their place in the political arena. Directed by Lois Anderson, whose Pericles for Bard in 2016 won her a Jessie Award for Outstanding Direction (Large Theatre).
Season tickets for the 2018 Season of Bard on the Beach are on sale now, with individual tickets and other packages going on sale later in the year.
Visit bardonthebeach.org to purchase or for updates on tickets.