Season 2016
Midsummer Scene Festival in 2016 (21st June – 7th July) featured a rich and varied programme, marking 400 years since Shakespeare’s death. Helen Tennison returned to direct Hamlet, with Helen Millar in the title role. This was the first time Hamlet was performed by an actress on a major Croatian stage. The take on the play, visually inspired by the Japanese court, focussed on female Hamlet choosing to live like a man in order to be accepted as a political power, which provided a new impact on the text. Fort Lovrjenac, that has played Elsinore for many Croatian and international productions of Hamlet, proved to be the perfect setting for the greatest Shakespeare’s tragedy.
Pre-production gallery
Photography by Andy Barker www.andybarkerphotography.co.uk
A Word from the Director
Hamlet is widely regarded as Shakespeare’s masterpiece, one of the most widely written about works in Western culture. Working with the text, and inhabiting the world of Hamlet, has taken me on a marvellous journey of discovery.
Key for me has been the search for meaning in a world that increasingly suggests that it can provide nothing of the sort. Rather than offering answers, the play asks questions of us, and provokes us to ask our own questions. Perhaps it is this that allows the play to speak to everyone, in every age.
One of my first questions on approaching the play was, of course, who will play Hamlet? Helen Millar was very quickly in my thoughts as an actor who could bring a full range of depth and complexity to the role. I was not seeking a female Hamlet in particular, it’s rather that my ideal actor turned out to be a woman.
I began to read the play with the concept of a female Hamlet in mind, and I found that I was hearing the famous lines as though for the first time. Everything is reframed with a woman in the role, the casting seems to enhance the plays themes of identity, mortality and free will.
There is, in fact, a rich history of women playing Hamlet. On YouTube you can find footage of the renowned Sarah Bernhardt in a production of the play in 1899.
Helen and I decided that her Hamlet was a women who had chosen to live as a man in order to be accepted as a political power, a choice that excited us both for its impact on the text, highlighting Gertrude’s lack of power, emphasising Hamlet as an outsider, and offering so many opportunities for contemporary reflections on the restrictions of gender roles within society. Our Elsinore is a restrictive, hierarchical society. Within the walls of Elsinore anything unacceptable is repressed or banished, only to emerge later, or elsewhere, in a new, more rotten form. It is this rot that Hamlet is compelled to explore, becoming as uncertain of her/his own truth and identity as she/he is of others.
At the time of writing I have just completed a few glorious days of exploration with the cast, a hugely talented group, rich in ideas and insights. We have further rehearsals in London before our work moves into Fort Lovrijenac. Having directed Twelfth Night here last year, I know that the fort will bring its own layer of resonance to the production. It is a real privilege to be staging Hamlet at this very special venue, and we look forward to bringing Hamlet’s quest through the intrigues of Elsinore to life within its walls.
Helen Tennison
‘Who’s There?’
Waiting
‘I wanted to speak those words.’ Many actresses have said this to me – experienced and brilliant actresses who have appeared on stage in Hamlet but were confined inside the roles of Gertrude or Ophelia – just two female parts in a cast of thirty. They had listened as a young man went through a professional rite of passage. Following in the footsteps of Burbage, Barrymore, Benedick Cumberbatch – you can pick a name – he had declaimed the speeches and quarried the emotions of Hamlet. ‘To be or not to be… ‘,’There’s a divinity that shapes our ends…’ While the women listened.
Hamlet is the greatest character in the greatest play in world drama. Yet in this tragedy Queen Gertrude never asserts her own thoughts and Ophelia is almost silent until men drive her insane. This doesn’t mean that Shakespeare was a misogynist – he wrote for a theatre where women were legally banned from the stage, and so if men and boys played the female roles it was unsurprising that in play after play Shakespeare concentrated on patriarchal stories. But this historical imbalance certainly created a troubling legacy, especially for English theatres, where women’s voices are still heard too rarely. In 1900 the great French actress Sarah Bernhardt expressed her frustration: ‘Ophelia brought nothing to me.’
And so she played Hamlet.
There is a great Hamlet counter-tradition. After over a century listening politely to ‘those words’, women demanded the right to speak them.
In 1741 Fanny Furnival (with ‘an elegant figure, an uncommon share of beauty, a perfect knowledge of every part she undertook’) found her career blocked in London. She moved to Ireland and became the first actress on record to play Hamlet. Her lead was followed by a string of resourceful women seizing whatever opportunities they could find to break the mould.
The great actress Sarah Siddons, who brought new dignity and respectability to the profession, played Hamlet from the 1770s into the early nineteenth century – despite a scandal that threatened her career, and never in front of London’s cultural Establishment. Her friend Elizabeth Inchbald, played Hamlet as the first step toward breaking free from the limitations imposed on female performers: she became a leading playwright.
They were followed in Britain and America by women who became theatre managers, novelists, suffragettes, campaigners against slavery, social reformers – and, for them all, seizing the right to play Hamlet was a symbolic blow for liberation. So audiences saw women playing Hamlet, a student at Wittenberg, before Englishwomen could graduate from university; they heard a female Hamlet choose Fortinbras as the next ruler of Denmark long before women in the ‘real’ world could vote.
So the history of women as Hamlet is a story of empowerment. The Romantic critic William Hazlett wrote ‘It is we who are Hamlet,’ but he assumed that ‘we’, his readers, were men. Look around you at the audience tonight. Who does Hamlet speak for? Sarah Bernhardt claimed that that only an actress could do justice to Hamlet – to the range of emotions, to the philosophical depth – and prompted star actresses all over the world to accept the challenge, to speak ‘those words’ in Italian, German, Russian, Finnish, Spanish, Yiddish, Turkish… The list goes on and on.
Being
Was Bernhardt right to claim that women not only had the right to play Hamlet, but that they did it better?
Shakespeare’s other great tragic figures – Macbeth, Lear, Othello – are driven by belligerence and rage, even homicidal fury; in contrast, commentators since Goethe have stressed Hamlet’s ‘sensitivity’, which the Victorians categorised as ‘femininity’. Eugene Delacroix’s Romantic paintings defined Hamlet’s image as slender and delicate, and in fact when Delacroix drew the ‘sweet Prince’ his favourite model was his friend Marguerite Pierret. In all this they were following a strand in the play.
The Queen, who loves Hamlet, compares him to a ‘female dove’; King Claudius, who hates him, calls him ‘unmanly’. Hamlet senses a femininity within himself, but condemns it: the very qualities that generations have admired in him – eloquence, compassion, intuition – he condemns as the characteristics of ‘a whore’, ‘a woman’. Sarah Bernhardt commented, ‘The things Hamlet says, his impulses, his actions, all indicate to me that he was a woman,’ and though she meant this metaphorically one critic, Edward Vining (1881), argued that Hamlet is actually a woman in disguise. Vining’s day-job was as a railroad engineer, but he was taken very seriously by Freudians and by James Joyce.
Vining’s greatest disciple, though, was the silent film star Asta Nielsen. In 1920 she played Hamlet onscreen as a girl raised as a boy by parents who were determined to hold onto the throne of Denmark. Nielsen’s version added to Hamlet’s complex tragedy the fact that she was living a lie, unable to reveal her true feelings. Asta Nielsen’s Hamlet was an international sensation and, ever since, female Hamlets have been dismantling gender and questioning society.
In 1931 Zinaida Raikh and her husband the great Russian director Meyerhold showed a dissident female Hamlet challenging Stalinism. Raikh and Meyerhold were both killed. In the 1960s Maria Espert’s Hamlet heralded the slow death of Franco’s regime in Spain. Turkey 1976: Fatma Girik made Hamlet a trouser-suited, Western-educated avenger, terrorising her uncle with satirical dances and songs, determined to wipe out corruption (later Girik became a mayor of Istanbul). Poland 1989: Teresa Budzisz-Krzyżanowska showed an actress straining to turn herself into Hamlet just as Hamlet is a thinker trying to learn how to kill. Desperately compassionate, s/he tried to save even Rosencrantz and Guildenstern: ‘I’ve always thought the scene is about true friendship. Hamlet should try everything to protect them’. And last year in Philadelphia USA Zainab Jah, born in Sierra Leone, made history yet again. ‘I try to represent Hamlet the person,’ she said, ‘not Hamlet the gender.’
William Hazlett wrote that ‘This play has a prophetic truth.’ Today, on the stages of gender, nationality, religion and race, Hamlet shows us still trying to understand ourselves.
Tony Howard teaches at Warwick University and is the author of Women as Hamlet (Cambridge University Press)
- CAST
- Al Barclay
- Lewis Chandler
- Emma Fenney
- Susan Hingley
- Filip Krenus
- Blake Kubena
- Helen Millar
- Christopher Tester
- Karren Winchester
CAST
- Claudius, Voice of Ghost: Al Barclay
- Guildenstern, Marcellus, Player, Gravedigger’s Son: Lewis Chandler
- Rosincrance, Osra, Player, Priestes: Emma Fenney
- Ophelia: Susan Hingley
- Polonius, Gravedigger: Filip Krenus
- Horatio: Blake Kubena
- Hamlet: Helen Millar
- Leartes, Bernardo, Player: Christopher Tester
- Gertrude: Karren Winchester
All other parts performed by the members of the cast.
AL BARCLAY (Claudius, Voice of Ghost)
Al graduated from Guildhall in 2002 and has worked consistently since then. He works regularly at The Globe entertaining corporate clients and major donors. He first worked professionally in Shakespeare as last minute replacement for Malvolio for Original Theatre Company, going on stage in front of 1000 people with less than 24 hours’ notice. He played numerous major Shakespearean roles in Yorkshire over seven years of regularly being called back by Sprite in a range of contrasting parts. His work with Shakespeare has taken him around the UK, the USA, Europe and the Far East. With The Factory he has worked for some years on verse, performed in Hamlet and The Odyssey, and is now working on Macbeth. Feature film work includes The Lady (Luc Besson) and Bright Young Things (Stephen Fry). He will be reprising his role as Scrooge in A Christmas Carol at The Arts Theatre, West End Christmas 2016.
LEWIS CHANDLER (Guildenstern, Marcellus, Player, Gravedigger’s Son)
Lewis graduated from Drama Studio London last summer and is thrilled to be joining Honey Tongued Theatre for Hamlet. Last November he was the lead role in Mercurius Theatres’ The Devil is an Ass at the Rose Playhouse where he was described as ‘Brilliant’ and ‘A joy to watch’. Before training, Lewis was a member of The Shambles, York’s premier improv troupe and appeared in Hinge Theatre’s adaption of Will Self’s Dorian. Lewis was also the title role in Trimble the film-noir comedy that was nominated for a BBC Audio Drama Award (2014).
EMMA FENNEY (Rosincrance, Osra, Player, Priestess)
Emma trained at Drama Studio London. Her theatre credits include Alice (Creation Theatre), Twelfth Night (Fort Lovrijenac), Wuthering Heights (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre / Tour), Paper Wings (Southwark Playhouse), Kicking and Screaming (Riverside Studios), In the Footsteps of The Mitfords (Theatre Chipping Norton), Sense and Sensibility (National Tour), Pinocchio (Luton Library Theatre), Fawlty Towers (Norwich Playhouse/ Tour), Inherit the Wind (Old Vic Theatre), Something Strange (Arcola Theatre), Casanova (King’s Head Theatre), Jane Eyre (Brockley Jack Studio), Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Cambridge Shakespeare Festival) and the Old Vic 24 Hour Plays (Old Vic Theatre). Emma is in the company taking Twelfth Night (from Midsummer scene 2015) to the Vienna’s English Theatre at the end of the year. Emma also records audio books and dramas. Her titles include We’ll Always Have Paris, Abigale Hall, Exposure, Wylding Hall, Chaos of the Senses, Now You See Me, Backpack and Six Degrees of Assassination. She is very happy to be back at the spectacular venue that is Fort Lovrjenac.
SUSAN HINGLEY (Ophelia)
Susan is a British actress based in London and working internationally. Born in Tokyo, raised in London and Munich, she is trilingual and speaks English, Japanese and German. She trained at Ecole Phillipe Gaulier in Paris and East 15 Acting School in London. Theatre includes: Wendy and Peter Pan, Orphan of Zhao, Boris Godunov, A Life of Galileo (Royal Shakespeare Company); A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Shakespeare’s Globe, International Tour), Dorian Gray (National Theatre Japan, Japan Tour) Around the World in 80 Days (New Vic / Manchester Royal Exchange), Pioneer (Curious Directive); One Million, All That Is Solid Melts Into Air, Home (Tangled Feet), Splash! (Lyric Hammersmith / GDIF / Latitude Festival), Catch / Ulov (Greyscale Theatre / Almeida), The Snow Queen (Lawrence Batley Theatre), Before I Sleep (dreamthinkspeak), Soho Streets (Soho Theatre). Television includes: Doctors, Sumo TV. Film: Shino’s Show, The Gloaming, Household Gods
FILIP KRENUS (Polonius, Gravedigger)
Filip trained at East 15 Acting School (BA Acting) and Drama Centre (MA in Classical European Acting). Theatre includes: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night (Midsummer Scene Festival, which he also produced for Honey-tongued Theatre Productions – Twelfth Night is transferring to Vienna’s English Theatre this Christmas and it will be staged at Bermuda Festival 2017), School for Scandal (directed by Jessica Swale), The Winter’s Tale (LittleBIG Shakespeare, directed by Titania Krimpas), King Lear and Dido, Queen of Carthage (Greenwich Theatre), Bent by Martin Sherman (Landor Theatre/Tabard Theatre), Orestes – Re-Examined (Southwark Playhouse), Peer Gynt (Riverside Studios), Hell Screen (Oval House), Richard III and Macbeth (Faction Theatre Company), The Rivals (Camden People’s Theatre), Jane Eyre adapted by Polly Teale (Brockley Jack Theatre) and Shakespeare Inc. (Rosemary Branch Theatre). Film: Transmania Radio: Gino Ginelli Lives (Wireless Theatre Company)
BLAKE KUBENA(Horatio)
Blake trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, and previously, at the College-Conservatory of Music in Cincinnati. He is a founding company member of Heady Conduct Theatre Company. His theatre credits include: Measure for Measure, Reckless (The Rose Playhouse & Heady Conduct), Hamlet (The Cockpit), As Is (Mice on a Beam), Eloise is Under an Almond Tree (Spanish Theatre Company), Othello, Comedy of Errors, The Three Musketeers (Alabama Shakespeare Festival), Mary’s Wedding (Hudson Stage Company), Madison (Premiere Stages), The Rivals, Coriolanus, London Assurance (Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey), The Immie Queen (Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati). www.blakekubena.com
HELEN MILLAR (Hamlet)
Helen trained at the Drama Centre. Winner of the Alan Bates award for most outstanding newcomer. Theatre includes: Death and The Ploughman (Tobacco Factory), Pericles, Two Gentleman of Verona, The Odyssey (Factory Theatre), Dracula: The Kisses, In the Footsteps of the Mitford’s, Stage Rights (Scary Little Girls), 21 Breaths (Park Theatre), Pygmalion (Garrick Theatre), Macbeth (Broadway Theatre), Breakfast with Emma, Heartbreak House, She Stoops To Conquer, Arcadia (Pitlochry Festival Theatre), 24 hour plays, Symposium, Spring, The Spies in Room 502 (The Old Vic), Love of the Nightingale, His Wild Imaginings (Rough Fiction), The Consultant, Slice (Theatre 503), Thin Toes, The Bards of Bangkok (Pleasance Theatre), Love is a Smoke, Soft Armour (Theatre Delicatessen). TV includes: Houdini & Doyle, Casualty, EastEnders, Holby City, Doctors, and City Lights. Film includes: Chemical Wedding, The Brink, Dark Rage, The Evening Was Long, Flash, Removed, The Rise and the Fall of the Krays. Helen in also Co-Artistic director of Rough Fiction and a member of The Factory Theatre. www.helenmillar.co.uk
CHRISTOPHER TESTER (Laertes, Bernardo, Player)
Christopher trained at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama. Theatre credits include: King Lear (Almeida Theatre), Blue/Orange (Tobacco Factory & UK tour), The Hypochondriac (English Touring Theatre), Romeo & Juliet (UK Tour), The Talented Mr Ripley (Greenwich Playhouse), The Picture of John Gray (Old Red Lion), Pedal Pusher & Henry V (Theatre Delicatessen, The Duchess of Malfi (Inky Cloak), Breakfast with Emma & The Alchemist (Rosemary Branch Theatre), A Place at the Table (Tristan Bates Theatre), Joan of Arc (New Diorama Theatre), Pride & Prejudice (European Tour). His one man adaptation of Nikolai Gogol’s Diary of a Madman played Edinburgh and London and was nominated ‘Best Fringe Show’ in Time Out.
Christopher’s website is christophertester.co.uk.
He has also voiced hundreds of voiceover projects ranging from BMW to major video game franchise Dark Souls. More about which can be found at naturallyrp.co.uk.
KARREN WINCHESTER (Gertrude)
Karren’s most recent theatre includes Les Blancs and Children of the Sun (National Theatre), Jonathan Harker in the all-female Dracula: The Kisses, (Scary Little Girls) and ‘Diva’ (Crazy one woman show!), National tours include: The Madness of George III (Peter Hall Co Tour and West End), Electra, A Doll’s House, A Clockwork Orange, Sons & Lovers, The Browning Version, Columbo and Margaret Down Under. Other theatre includes: The Ladies’ Cage (Finborough and Manchester Royal Exchange Studio), Fallen (Liverpool Everyman at Hampstead), Year 10 (Finborough, BAC, Rennes and Strasburg International Festivals), Blithe Spirit (Vienna’s English Theatre) Oliver! (Marlowe Theatre) Precious Bane and The Canterbury Tales (both Open Air). Karren plays Wendy Simmons in EastEnders and other TV includes: Holby City, Dr Who, Julian Fellowes’ Mysterious Murders, David Kelly: A Fight to the Death, Nuzzle & Scratch (All for BBC) The Bill (Talkback Thames) and True (Channel 4) Films include: Chapel, The Ring Cycle (HBO Writer) Revenge, Mam and Sam’s Story. Radio: Jimmy Cliff Hard Road (BBC Radio 4), The Last Wright Brother, Barbara Windsor Winked At Me (Radio Kent)
- CREATIVE TEAM
- Helen Tennison
- Filip Krenus
- Fay Lomas
- Bryony J. Thompson
- Benedict Davies
- Matt Eaton
- Andy Barker
- Eva Auster
- Philip d'Orléans
- Bari Goddard
CREATIVE TEAM
- Executive Producers (Brilliant Events): Darija Mikulandra Žanetić & Jelena Maržić
- Producer (Honey-tongued Theatre Productions): Filip Krenus
- Director: Helen Tennison
- Sound Design and Additional Composition: Matt Eaton
- Composer: Benedict Davies
- Lighting Designer: Saša Mondecar
- Costume Designer: Bryony J. Thompson
- Video & Projection Designer: Eva Auster
- Fight Director: Philip d’Orléans
- Stage Manager: Virginia Bolfek
- Assistant Director: Fay Lomas
- Assistant Costume Designer: Duška Nešić Dražić
- Hair and Make Up: Ivana Pleša
- Sound System: Milan Tomašić, Fifi sound
- Light system: Ivan Filipi / Dubrovnik Summer Festival
- Technical Manager: Darko Ivanković, Studio DI
- Graphic & Web Design: Davor Pukljak
- Photographer: Andy Barker
- Poster Photography: Bari Goddard
HELEN TENNISON (Director)
Helen returns to Fort Lovrjenac having directed last year’s Hamlet and Midsummer Scene’s Twelfth Night, which also toured to Vienna’s English Theatre and The Bermuda Festival. As a freelance director, Helen has worked across the UK, Europe and in the United States for venues including Shakespeare’s Globe, Oxford Playhouse, Theatre Royal Winchester, Theatre Royal Bury St Edmunds, The Arcola and Soho Theatre. Her productions of Shakespeare include Antony and Cleopatra (Creation Theatre), Love’s Labour’s Lost and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (CSF), Hamlet, Measure for Measure and The Tempest (The Rosemary Branch), and Titus Andronicus (The University of South Florida). Helen’s tenure as Artist in Residence at the University of South Florida saw the creation of the multi-media Ravens, focused on women, race and identity in American history. With Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud and The Rosemary Branch Helen produced and directed multi Award nominated tours of Fay Weldon’s Breakfast With Emma, Sense and Sensibility and Wuthering Heights (which she also adapted). New writing includes work with Kate Kerrow for Women at RADA and The Night Before Christmas for the Herstory Festival. For five years Helen was Artistic Director of Barefeat Physical Theatre, directing numerous devised, physical performances. She has extensive education experience including work with in prisons and is committed to building links between theatre and the community. Work in development includes a new play for 2018 with Creation Theatre, research into the meeting point between naturalism and expressionism and an Arts Council supported interactive multi-media project inspired by The Rape of Lucrece. Helen is Head of the Two Year Acting Course at Drama Studio London. Her production of Alice in Wonderland is currently running at Bicester Village and Oxford University Parks.
FILIP KRENUS (Creative Producer – Honey-tongued Theatre Productions)
Filip Krenus is celebrating the fifth anniversary of setting up Honey-tongued Theatre Productions this year. When he set it up in 2012, he aimed to create a cultural bridge between the United Kingdom and South-Eastern Europe. He set up and produced the first festival of Croatian contemporary drama in London Short Shrift , which was sponsored by the Croatian Ministry of Culture and the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the United Kingdom. The event featured five top Croatian playwrights and brought to London some of the best young Croatian actors and directors. He has launched Honey-tongued READINGS – a series of rehearsed readings of both British and South-Eastern European plays and has set up Honeybear Youth Theatre, the children’s theatre branch of Honey-tongued Theatre Productions. Hedgehog’s Home was its first production. In 2015 Filip has set up LittleBIG Shakespeare workshop series for young audiences. In Croatia, Filip has collaborated with several theatre companies. He has translated the comedy The Complete Works of William Shakespeare – Abridged for Teatar EXIT, one of the most acclaimed Croatian theatres. The translation served as a basis for the Croatian version of the project for which he was also assistant director. He also translated the works of the following playwrights into Croatian: Steven Berkoff, Jim Cartwright, Philip Ridley, Briony Lavery, Clare Dowie and Langford Wilson. For Short Shrift, he translated into English the plays by Croatian playwrights Vlatka Vorkapić and Dino Pešut. He is currently working on producing the UK premiere of Gloria by Ranko Marinković, a Croatian classic play which he has also translated into English. He has translated into English the comedy Uncle Maroje by one of the greatest Croatian and European Renaissance playwrights Marin Držić. Filip also translates for audio-visual media (Croatian National Television).
FAY LOMAS (Assistant Director)
Fay’s directing credits include: Berenice (The Space, January 2015) and Balloon (Vault Festival, 2015). She is due to direct a production of Lorca’s Blood Wedding at the Bread and Roses Theatre this summer. Fay’s assistant directing credits include: Dracula: The Kisses, also directed by Helen Tennison (Minack, autumn 2014) and Klippies, directed by Chelsea Walker (Southwark Playhouse, May/June 2015). She is a Resident Casting Director at the Finborough Theatre, where she is a member of the literary team as well. She also works as a reader for the Orange Tree Theatre.
BRYONY J. THOMPSON (Costume Designer)
Originally from Seattle, Bryony J. Thompson is a freelance director, designer, and writer. She studied acting and costume design at Bennington College in Vermont and was an Artistic Associate at the Rosemary Branch Theatre 2011-2016. She directed and designed Romeo & Juliet (Rosemary Branch, 2012), directed, designed and adapted Jane Eyre (Rosemary Branch 2013 and Rosemary Branch & tour 2014). In 2014 she directed the world premiere of Spirit Harbour, a contemporary opera, for Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, which was later performed at the Tête à Tête Opera Festival King’s Cross, and directed pluck. Productions’ inaugural project, The Cow Play by Ed Harris. In 2015, she directed, adapted and designed Pride & Prejudice for The Rosemary Branch and directed a new play, F.A.N.Y., for Anonymous Is A Woman, which toured the Midlands. Costume credits include Helen Tennison’s production of Wuthering Heights (Rosemary Branch, Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud, & tour), Twelfth Night for Honey-tongued Theatre Productions in Dubrovnik, Croatia (which later went on to Vienna’s English Theatre and the Bermuda Theatre Festival), and Empty Vessels (Rosemary Branch Theatre). In 2016, Thompson remounted her production of Jane Eyre to celebrate Charlotte Bronte’s 200th birthday, directed Venus Quarry for pluck. Productions as part of Catford-Upon-Avon and directed, designed, and adapted a new production of Persuasion (Rosemary Branch Theatre and tour). This year, she made her own wedding dress and is endeavouring to get her adaptations published. You can follow her on twitter, @bryonyjoan, or find out more about her work here.
BENEDICT DAVIES (Composer)
As a musician, composer and producer, Ben has worked predominantly from his London based studio producing scores and soundtracks for film and theatre since 2001. Theatre works include Cinderella and Alice (Creation Theatre), Twelfth Night (Midsummer Scene), Wuthering Heights, Sense and Sensibility and Breakfast with Emma (Rosemary Branch/Tennison Quirk), Anthony and Cleopatra (Creation), Waterfall (Anu Kumar/Nitin Sawhney) and Pop’Pea (Theatre Du Chatelet). Ben’s educational projects have resulted in the composition of numerous original works for children’s musical theatre. Dramatic scores for film include Two to Tangle (Carparthia Pictures), The Hand You Are Dealt (Orchard Communications), Do You Know Why We’re Here? (Speakeasy), What If? (Orchard) with awards gained from film festivals such as World Media, Worldfest, Intercom, Midas and New York. As a pianist and keyboard player, Ben has performed with the North Sea Radio Orchestra, (Green Man Festival, Purcell Rooms, St Martin-in the-fields), William D Drake (Bush Hall), Harry Escott and Molly Nyman’s Samphire Band (Kings place) including live performance of Escott’s score to the film Shifty and of Vernon Elliot’s original scores for BBC series The Clangers. Ben recently recorded and engineered William D Drakes much-appraised new album Revere Reach.
MATT EATON (Sound Designer)
Matt is a sound designer and composer for theatre, film, television and latterly, video games. He is an associate artist at Creation Theatre in Oxford. Recent work includes: Hamlet (Midsummer Scene Festival, Fort Lovrjenac) , Furious Folly (Mark Anderson’s large scale outdoor dadaist theatre), Not the End of the World (EFF), The History Boys (UK Tour), Ravens and Titus Andronicus (USF, Florida), Kethra (Venetian Biennale of Architecture), Sense and Sensibility and Wuthering Heights (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre), Break The Floorboards (Watford Palace Theatre)), Medea (Rose Theatre, Kingston), King Lear, As You Like It, Alice, Treasure Island and The Wind in the Willows (Creation), The Taming of the Shrew, Grimm’s Tales, Alice in Wonderland and The Winter’s Tale (Guildford Shakespeare Company). Composer: Faust (Flatpack Film Festival), Great Scott (gonzomoose tour), Drowning on Dry Land (Tarrento Productions, Jermyn Street Theatre), The Picture of Dorian Gray (Trafalgar Studios), Dracula (tour), Helen (actors of Dionysus tour), Shadow Shows (Edinburgh International Film Festival); Nosferatu (Warwick Arts Centre), The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (Midlands Arts Centre). On the Shore with Caution (Klangbad, Germany). Film & TV credits include: The Gambler (BBC Radio 3), Volkswagen and BT advertisements, Hallam Foe (Channel 4 Films), short films for Filmficciones and Bolex Brothers. Current Projects Under the Blossom that Hangs from the Bough (ACE sponsored commission for sound art and composition), Pool Panic (video game sound design). Matt writes and releases music with Birmingham musicians collective Pram on the Domino Recordings label. The group have toured extensively worldwide, and boast a critically acclaimed back catalogue. http://tinyurl.com/Matt-Eaton-Info
ANDY BARKER (Photographer)
Encompassing PR, advertising and conceptual photography, Andy has created the beautiful and the bold with her own distinct style. She is passionate and hard working about everything she does. She brings her digital expertise and attention to detail in all she creates. Most of all she loves being out there shooting because sometimes that’s where amazing things can happen by using her insight and intuition.
www.andybarker.com
EVA AUSTER (Video & Projection Designer)
Specialises in creating visceral video and projection designs for theatre and live performances. Eva has a BA (Hons) in Drama & Theatre studies, and a MA in Visual Media Design from Central School of Speech and Drama. Credits include: Still II, (Zagreb, Croatia), On the Face of It (Sprint Festival at Camden People’s Theatre), Where’s My Desi Soulmate? (Rifco Arts, London), Another Paradise (Kali Theatre, London), No Way Out (Southwark Playhouse, London), Coming Fourth by Day, (Unclaimed Creatures at British Museum), Vagina Monologues (Queen Elizabeth Hall, London), Return (3Fates at Yard Theatre & Amman, Jordan), Ravens (University of Florida, Floria), Rest Upon The Wind (Qatar, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai) and more. Eva also works as a university lecturer, creative director and photographer as well as having a performance practice specialising in, theatre, interactive digital technologies, dance and creative live events. For more information about her work, full list of credits and contact details, please visit: www.eauster.co.uk
PHILIP D’ORLÉANS (Fight Director)
Philip is a member of the Equity Register of Fight Directors, and of the teaching and examining staff of the BASSC. He teaches for RADA, Drama Studio London and other drama schools and universities. Theatre credits include: Dial M For Murder (National Tour); The Djinns of Eidgah (The Royal Court); The Kite Runner; Robin Hood; A Skull in Connemara, Duchess of Malfi, Noises Off (Nottingham Playhouse); King Lear (Theatre Royal Bath); To Sir With Love (Royal Theatre Northampton); Gaslight; The Widowing of Mrs. Holroyd,; Far From The Madding Crowd; The Ladykillers (New Vic Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent); Othello; Midsummer Night’s Dream; Cyrano de Bergerac (Chester Performs); Corrie! (International Tour); Romeo & Juliet (Theatre Royal Bury St. Edmunds); Henry IV; (parts 1 & 2); God of Soho; The Mysteries; Midsummer Night’s Dream; Macbeth (Shakespeare’s Globe); Julius Caesar; I’ll Be The Devil (Royal Shakespeare Company); Simon Boccanegra; Faust; Ariodante (English National Opera); Veneziana; Der Rosenkavalier (Royal Opera House); Swimming With Sharks (Vaudeville Theatre); Carrie’s War (Apollo Theatre); Noises Off (Royal Court Liverpool); The Mousetrap (Victoria Palace Theatre). Film credits include: Knights of the Round Table: King Arthur (Guy Ritchie); Pan (Warner Brothers); The Knife That Killed Me (Universal Pictures); Dark Signal (Independent).
Bari Goddard – the photographer (GOD Photography)
Bari Goddard’s musical career began in the 1980s with an art-rock band Blaue Reiter. After the band broke up, he went to London, where he became the lead singer in The Knives. In the late 1980s, he sang backing vocals for Then Jerico. After the group split in early 1990s, he began collaborating with Jimmy Somerville. Following a world tour with Somerville, he withdrew from the music scene and decided to dedicate himself to painting and photography, exhibiting all over Europe. Saatchi Gallery has compared his work to Graham Sutherland and Ceri Richards. Bari exhibited in The Louvre as a featured photographer and last year his exhibition on Midsummer Scene Twelfth Night – Night Dubrovnik opened in London and transferred to Dubrovnik this summer. Under the brand God Photography, Goddard creates a wide range of works, from portraits (some of his models were Judi Dench and Rula Lenska), to provocative avant-garde. His new exhibition which forms a bridge between Dubrovnik and London will be open until 18th November.
Elsinore in Dubrovnik
Photographic exhibition by Bari Goddard (14th October – 18th November 2016)
Midsummer Scene Festival, together with the Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, organises the exhibition Midsummer Scene – Elsinore in Dubrovnik by the photographer Bari Goddard who has also collaborated on a series of events in support of the main production that headlined the Festival this season.
Midsummer Scene and the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra present Midsummer Night’s Music
Conductor: Slobodan Begić
- J. Horner: Music from Titanic, arr. C. Custer
- N. Rota: The Godfather (love theme)
- K. Badelt: Pirates of the Caribbean, arr. L. Moore
- H. Mancini: Salute to Mancini, arr. J. Kazik
- J. Barry, A. Adkins-P. Epworth, M. Norman, M. Hamlisch, P. & L. McCartney:
Bond… James Bond, arr. R. Longenfield - A. C. Jobim: Girl from Ipanema, arr. L. Moore
- C. Santana: Santana in Concert, arr. L. Moore
- A. Piazzolla: Libertango, arr. R. Longenfield
- K. Jenkins: Palladio Concerto Grosso for String Orchestra
Narrator: Mark Thomas