Season 2018

Shakespeare’s comedy of confused and enchanted identities returned to Midsummer Scene (20th June – 4th July 2018), marking the Festival’s fourth collaboration with Helen Tennison. This time, the show took 1930s as its starting point. The stark Athenian court, for which the Fort Lovrjenac again provided excellent backdrop, dissolved into a mad lovers’ chase and also featured Bollywood-style choreography. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a classic Shakespearean comedy focusing on themes of love, passion, magic, mistaken identity and even theatre itself. It is one of the most widely performed plays from the Bard’s back catalogue and therefore proved an absolute hit with the audience of the Festival.

Five Seasons

Midsummer Scene Anniversary Concert

Henry V (Man and Monarch)

Performed by Brett Brown, directed by Philip Parr

H(2)O

Based on Hamlet. Performed and devised by A. Rakowska and P. Misztela.

Two Bards

Scenes from Držić’s Uncle Maroye and Shakespeare’s sonnets

Note from the Director

The course of true love never did run smooth
—Lysander I. 136

A Midsummer Nights Dream is an intoxicating party of a play, probably written as a bridal masque. In this light, the illicit adventures of lovers in the woods can be read as a final rebellion before commitment. I was interested in focusing on how our lovelorn characters have important lessons to learn. In order to enjoy love, they must not only overcome external obstacles, but they must also confront their internal fears. And it’s never easy to face our flaws! Helena’s love seems to lead directly to a loss of self-respect, we recognize it, laugh at it, and love her for it.

Love lookes not with the eyes, but with the minde,
And therefore is wing’d
Cupid painted blinde.

—Helena  I. 238,239.

The play features numerous references to the way we ‘see’. We view our beloved as an example of godlike perfection. Puck fetches a flower that can emulate this effect, creating Titania’s passionate love for Bottom – despite the fact that he truly is, an ass. Bryony J Thompson and I plan to work these motifs into our production through her costume designs, through an explosion of colour as we enter the woods. When we love, we see the world in vibrant technicolour.  But love can also colour our interpretation of events so that we see insult where there is none, viewing the world through a distorted and corrupting lens. Oberon’s jealousy and subsequent row with Titania is so vicious that it unbalances the natural world.

Therefore the Moone (the governesse of floods)
Pale in her anger, washes all the aire;
That Rheumaticke diseases doe abound.
And through this distemperature, we see
The seasons alter;
—Titania II. 102-106

Shakespeare continually references the moon in this play. Reminding us that the action takes place undercover of night and the romantic light of the moon. The moonlit, fairy world is joyfully free of the restrictive morality of Athens. Here, all our lusts, grief’s and selfish passions are indulged. Perhaps the fairies are simply the repressed side of the human characters? The humans returning to Athens, and marriage, are clearly happier and more settled for letting their fairy side out to play.

The final words of the evening go to Puck. Puck, I interpret as the random factor, the unknowable and uncontrollable sneaking into the human world just to meddle. And after all, without a little mischievous magic, could love flourish?

Lord, what fooles these mortals be!
—Puck III. 315

About "A Midsummer Night's Dream"

20th June  – 4th July  2018 at 9:30 pm
(every night except 26th June)
Fort Lovrjenac, Dubrovnik

Shakespeare’s magical comedy of mistaken, confused and enchanted identities comes back to Dubrovnik where it shall be performed at Fort Lovrjenac, the most famous open air venue in this part of Europe.

The brand new production specially designed for Midsummer Scene Festival dives into the world of Faery where the stark world of Athenian court dissolves into a mad lovers’ chase.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is a classic Shakespearean comedy focusing on themes of love, passion, magic, mistaken identity and even theatre itself. It is one of the most widely performed plays from the Bard’s back catalogue.

Taking the 1930s as its starting point, this production will also feature Bollywood-style choreography.

The British cast, directed by Helen Tennison, is supported by an international creative team.

CAST
  • Helena, Snout, Fairy: Hannah Blackstone-Brown
  • Theseus, Oberon: James Burton
  • Hippolyta, Titania: Kudzanayi Chiwawa
  • Lysander, Flute, Fairy: Ben Cutler
  • Hermia, Starveling, Fairy: Susan Hingley
  • Puck, Philostrate: Sheetal Kapoor
  • Bottom, Fairy: Filip Krenus
  • Patsy Quince, Egea, Fairy: Lainey Shaw
  • Demetrius, Snug, Fairy: Paul Sockett

All other parts performed by the members of the cast.

HANNAH BRACKSTONE-BROWN (Helena, Snout, Fairy)

Hannah graduated from the BA (Hons) Acting course at East 15 Acting School in 2008.

Theatre Credits: The Gin Chronicles (The Bridewell Theatre); The 39 Steps (Lyric Theatre, Belfast);The Sting (Wiltons Music Hall); Some Girls (New Wimbledon Studio); The Missing Toreador (St James Theatre); An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein (Drayton Theatre); Cole Porter’s Aladdin (Sadler’s Wells); Emma (Sai Wan Ho Civic Theatre, Hong Kong); Elegies for Angels Punks and Raging Queens (Theatro Technis); The Browning Version (Tristan Bates Theatre); You Were After Poetry (Tristan Bates Theatre); The Dreaming (Linbury Studio, Royal Opera House)

Hannah has performed in concerts and cabarets at Lauderdale House, Battersea Barge and Hoxton Hall. She has also appeared in commercials for M&S Food, BBC Radio 2, Twix, Royal National Lifeboat Institute, Groupon, The Racing Post, Hilton Hotels and Notonthehighstreet.com

JAMES BURTON (Theseus, Oberon)

James is delighted to be back performing in Dubrovnik, having played Sir Toby Belch in Twelfth Night for Midsummer Scene in 2015. He trained at Mountview Academy, and St Mary’s University College, London. Other theatre credits include: Alice in Wonderland playing The Mad Hatter, A Christmas Carol (playing Jacob Marley and The Ghost Of Christmas Present), and Antony and Cleopatra as Pompey and Agrippa, all for Creation Theatre Company in Oxford. He’s played Colonel Brandon in a touring production of Sense & Sensibility for director Helen Tennison, Charles Bovary in Faye Weldon’s Madame Bovary: Breakfast with Emma (Rosemary Branch, National Tour), and Peer Gynt for the Ibsen Stage Company. He’s played Ben in The Dumb Waiter (LPC European Tour), Mr Toad in The Wind in the Willows (National Tour), and been in American Haiku (Jermyn Street Theatre, London), and Mammon Inc. (Raffles Hotel Theatre, Singapore).

KUDZANAYI CHIWAWA (Hippolyta, Titania)

Kudzanayi is Zimbabwean born actress, who graduated from Drama Studio London. She has worked with copanies such as Gecko Theatre, Two Gents, Scary Little Girls, Smooth Faced Gentlemen and Punchdrunk.  Some of her recent productions include Three Mothers, Gliwice Hamlet, Peter Pan, Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, ‘Fall’ and Dracula. This is her third time working with Helen Tennison. Kudzanayi is also an emerging Playwright; she was accepted onto the Royal Court Theatre Writers’ Program and her first play Push Up Daisies performed at The Hope Theatre.

BEN CUTLER (Lysander, Flute, Fairy)

Training: École Philippe Gaulier. Theatre: Jane Eyre at the National Theatre and UK Tour; Hotel for W!LD RICE, Singapore at Victoria Theatre; Nocturne at South Bank Spiegeltent, Playland at Derby Theatre; Romeo and Juliet UK Tour , The Latke Who Couldn’t Stop Screaming for Tall Stories; The Double Bass at Mundolinga Paris , Ruins at The Lowry; The Great Gatsby and Macbeth at Harrogate Theatre; Scrooge: A Christmas Carol and Animal Farm at Harrogate Theatre; Misfits of London: The Gin Chronicles at St James Theatre. Feature Film includes: 7 Days in Entebbe, dir: Jose Padhila; Trois Femme, dir: Tatia Sherbabovla. Awards: Winner – Best Ensemble L!Fe Theatre Awards for Hotel (2016). Teaching: École Philippe Gaulier; Mount View London

SUSAN HINGLEY (Hermia, Starveling, Fairy)

Theatre: 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); Hamlet (Honey-tongued Theatre Productions, Croatia); Tamburlaine (Arcola Theatre); Dorian Gray (National Theatre Japan); 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. Film: Shino’s Show, The Gloaming, Household Gods.

SHEETAL KAPOOR (Puck, Philostrate)

Sheetal trained at Drama Studio London. Theatre credits include: The Tempest (Get Over It Productions), Romeo and Juliet (FRED Theatre), One Year Off (FRED Theatre), The Sexy Seven (Lost City Writers) and Pristine in Blue (The Play’s The Thing Theatre). Film credits include: Rukhsati (Karakoori Productions), Guilty Pleasures (Smooth Demon Productions) and A Suitable Husband (Grand Independent). She also recorded various characters for The Jungle Book (Audible). sheetalkapoor.co.uk

FILIP KRENUS (Bottom, Fairy)

Filip trained at East 15 Acting School (BA Acting) and Drama Centre (MA in Classical European Acting). He set up Honey-tongued Theatre Productions in 2012 and is one of the co-founders of Midsummer Scene Festival. Theatre credits include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet (Midsummer Scene) and Twelfth Night (Midsummer Scene and Vienna’s English Theatre), School for Scandal (directed by Jessica Swale), The Winter’s Tale (LittleBIG Shakespeare), King Lear and Dido, Queen of Carthage (Greenwich Theatre), Bent (Landor/Tabard), 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 (Brockley Jack) and The Right Ballerina (directed by Matthew Gould). Films include Transmania and radio includes Gino Ginelli Lives (Wireless Theatre Company)

LAINEY SHAW (Patsy Quince, Egea, Fairy)

Lainey Shaw trained at The Academy Drama School, London. Previous theatre credits include: Alison in A-Z (Flanaganza), Mildred Bulthorpe in Key for Two (Vienna’s English Theatre), Pam Underwood in A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Agnes in Silence (Large Print Theatre), Aunt Jennings in Sense and Sensibility (Tour), Mrs Fairfax/Mrs Reed in Jane Eyre, Mrs Bennet in Pride & Prejudice (Rosemary Branch Theatre), Nurse in Romeo & Juliet (Young Shakespeare Company), Diana in Absent Friends, Ruth in Blithe Spirit, Grace Page in Game Plan, Dee in Jobson Roleplay, Adelaide Pinchin in Mysterious Mister Love, Jane Banbury in Fallen Angels (all in rep for MFP), She also provides the voice of on-hold marketing for various companies in the North of England.

PAUL SOCKETT (Demetrius, Snug, Fairy)

Stage credits include: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (First UK Tour – National Theatre); Tony Blair the Musical (Edinburgh Festival); Plain Jane, Some Scary Stories (Royal Exchange, Manchester); The School for Wives (Edinburgh Festival); Tartuffe (Wimbledon Studios); Hary Janos (Ryedale Festival Opera); The Crimson Retribution (24:7 Festival). Screen credits include: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (Universal Pictures); Humans (Kudos); Banana (E4); Coronation Street (ITV); The Best Little Whorehouse in the North (IV Films). Voice credits include: Tyre (BBC Radio 3 / EBU); Bang Up (BBC Radio 4); Primary Music (BBC Bitesize). Spotlight pin: 1573-9052-0299

CREATIVE TEAM
  • Executive Producers (Brilliant Events): Darija Mikulandra Žanetić & Jelena Maržić
  • Producer (Honey-tongued Theatre Productions): Filip Krenus
  • Director: Helen Tennison
  • Composer: Benedict Davies
  • Costume Designer: Bryony J. Thompson
  • Set Designer: Marin Gozze
  • Lighting Designer: Aleksandar Mondecar
  • Sound Designer: Matt Eaton
  • Bollywood Dance Choreographer: Sheetal Kapoor
  • Fight Choreographer: Natalia Bogdanova
  • Stage Manager: Virginia Bolfek
  • Director’s Assistant: Maisy Taylor
  • Assistant Costume Designer: Andrea Marić
  • Assistant Stage Manager: Daniela Juroš
  • Hair and Make Up: Ivana Pleša
  • Light System: Nikola Kapidžić, Antonio Ljubojević
  • Sound System: Milan Tomašić, Fifi sound
  • Technical Manager: Darko Ivanković, Studio DI
  • Graphic & Web Design: Davor Pukljak
    HELEN TENNISON (Director)

    Helen returns to Fort Lovrjenac for her fourth season having directed Midsummer Scene’s Hamlet and 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 Labours 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. From 2015-2017 Helen was Artistic Director of the Two Year Acting Course at Drama Studio London.

    Recent work includes pop-up performances of Alice in Wonderland, a two-person Freudian interpretation of Dracula staged in the basement of a bookshop, a near future interpretation of The Crucible in Tampa, Florida and development work for Boots (new writing), Vault Festival.

    FILIP KRENUS (Creative Producer  – Honey-tongued Theatre Productions)

    When Filip formed Honey-tongued Theatre Productions in 2012, he aimed to create a cultural bridge between the United Kingdom and South-Eastern Europe. He 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).

    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 HeightsSense 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.

    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.

    MARIN GOZZE (Set Designer)

    Marin was born in Dubrovnik and graduated from the Academy of Applied Arts in Belgrade in 1969 under professor Milenko Šerban. He specialized in television set design on RAI Television in Rome in 1970 and in 1985 he became the set designer for Marin Držić Theatre in Dubrovnik. He has served two tenures as the Director of Marin Držić Theatre: 1991-1994 and 1998-2002. He is a member of the Croatian Applied Artists Association. He has created more than two hundred set designs and forty costume designs for theatres in Dubrovnik, Split, Zagreb, Varaždin, Osijek, Rijeka, Sarajevo, Mostar, Nova Gorica, Ljubljana, Maribor and Klagenfurt. He designed costumes for the first performance of Marin Držić’s work in Washington, USA. Marin is also a graphic designer and provides technical support and artistic direction for art exhibitions, and works as an interior designer. He is an external professor at the Arts Academy of the University of Split where he teaches set design. Marin has received numerous awards for his work at Croatian theatre festivals.

    ALEKSANDAR MONDECAR (Lighting Designer)

    Aleksandar grew up in the theatre and has spent 35 years in professional theatre lighting. He has worked with almost every director, set designer, choreographer and costume designer in Croatia, as well as many creatives from abroad and has designer for all the theatres and cultural cnetres in the country togheter with numerous theatres abroad, having a total of over 800 shows to his credit. He has worked with the Histrions Theatre, Zagreb for over twenty years on all their projects, as well as with many groups and festivals such as International Theatre Festival Jerusalem, International Theatre Festival Berlin, International Street Festival Graz, International Festival Gent and many more. He has held a series of seminars on stage lighting and taught at Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts in 1996. Aleksandar has won several awards and prizes, including the prestigious ‘Varaždin Baroque Evenings’, and special lighting design awards from NAJ festival and the ASSITEJ (International Association of Theatre for Children and Young People). His contribution to the development of culture in the Republic of Croatia earned him the personal appreciation of the Minister of Culture. Aleksandar wrote the first book about lighting design in Croatia – Introduction to Theatre Lighting which was published in 2000 and he is a Member of the Community of Croatian Artists since 2001.

    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

    SHEETAL KAPOOR (Bollywood Dance Choreographer)

    I started to learn Bollywood dancing from the age of 6. I have performed at numerous weddings and events since then. When I went to Aston University I learnt Bhangra and Hip Hop/Street Dance. I then became Co-President of the dance society there and started choreography for beginners and intermediates. I also spent some time being part of Aston’s Bhangra Team. Since then I have choreographed Bollywood and Bhangra dances for numerous weddings and events. I am very much looking forward to choreographing the dance in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

    NATALIA BOGDANOVA (Fight Choreographer)

    Natalia is a Russian actor and stage combatant, graduated from Drama Studio London in 2016. She is an intermediate actor/combatant and an Executive Committee representative at British Academy of Stage and Screen combat, and has been assisting stage combat instructors at Royal Central School of Speech and Drama and Drama Studio London. In 2012, she was an interpreter and assistant to the associate director of Mamma Mia! In Moscow.

    MAISY TAYLOR (Director’s Assistant)

    Maisy Taylor is a highly skilled aeri circus artist, teacher, writer and director with a love of contemporary performance. She was born into a circus family and has been performing and making work from a very young age. She graduated in 2015 with a First-Class Honours Degree from The National Centre for Circus Arts. She likes to create from an academic stimulus and is meticulous and considered in her research. She is interested in how we communicate with our bodies and how we can tell stories through movement and strives to make work that is both thought provoking and aesthetically unusual.

     Midsummer Scene and Parrabola Present
    WINNER Best Solo Shakespeare Performance, Ostrava Shakespeare Festival 2016

    At a time when we question our leaders, and wonder what drives them – how many compromises must they make to rule and find authority, Shakespeare’s Henry V has never been more relevant as it asks the question.

    What does power do to kings?

    Experience an intense hour with Shakespeare’s sometime hero – and the King to whom England always turns in times of crisis – in this powerful and direct solo interpretation of Henry V, which has been acclaimed throughout the major European Shakespeare Festivals, and at its Australian premiere at the Adelaide Fringe.

    “Phenomenal performance” — Shakespeare Daily, Gdańsk Shakespeare Festival, Poland
    “Emerging star” — The Sydney Morning Herald
    * * * * * “Brown delivers a brilliant performance” — Adelaide Theatre Guide
    * * * * * “A powerful show” — The Advertiser
    * * * * * “A tour de force” — InDaily

    Australian actor Brett Brown is a graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), London. He has performed with the Royal Shakespeare Company, sung with Opera Australia, and appeared in plays and musicals on London’s West End and in theatre festivals throughout Europe. Film includes the Academy Award winning The Theory of Everything. His reinterpretations of classical theatre include Phaedra and Tiresias.

    Philip Parr is a founding council member of the European Shakespeare Festivals network and Director of the York International Shakespeare Festival. He was founder and Artistic Director of Spitalfields Market Opera, a purpose built chamber opera house for London and the first opera house built in London for over 100 years, and has been director of the Swaledale Festival, Bath Shakespeare Festival. In the theatre Philip has made a particular reputation as a director of large scale community plays, chiefly working as Artistic Director of Parrabbola. Parrabbola makes work within a community setting. This work has included multi-lingual site specific Shakespeare productions of Pericles (2010) and The Winter’s Tale (2012) in Gdansk (Poland) and Ostrava in Czech Republic, and Romeo and Juliet (2016) and A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2018) created for Craiova, Romania.

    Midsummer Scene and Teatr Stefa Otwara Present H(2)O

    2nd July 2018 at 9:30 pm / Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik

    In this critically acclaimed production – based on Hamlet and devised by Anna Rakowska and Piotr Misztela — the actors explore the key scene between Hamlet and Ophelia.

    These two characters are engaged in a constant and dangerous game, forced by the depth of their feelings to fight and to play. Interacting constantly with the audience and with the environment in which they are playing, Anna and Piotr create a performance based on improvisation in which the actors examine the boundaries of theatre, giving viewers the opportunity to explore their own expression of feelings and most importantly to decide.

    What can come of this?

    “Attentive, sensitive, focused, very physical and emotional” — Shakespeare Festival in Gdansk

    “Improvised, highly physical, bilingual work such as H(2)O successfully avoids Shakespeare’s lines becoming mere words, words, words that signify nothing, and makes them words that do.” — York Shakespeare Festival

    Anna has graduated from the Ludwik Solski State Superior Theatre School in Kraków–Wrocław Branch. Since 2013, she has been a member of the independent group Teatr Strefa Otwarta, who work on their own theatre language based on improvisation and various performance techniques. The group focuses on contemporary stagings of Shakespeare’s plays. Anna Rakowska is a member of Teatr Odwrócony in Krakow. She collaborates with Teatr Druga Strefa in Warsaw, Sabanci University in Istanbul; Fine Arts Academy in Wrocław. Anna has received numerous awards for her work.

    Piotr is an actor, director, and performing arts teacher. He is a member of Nordic Stage Fight Society and South Baltic Academy of Independent Theatre. As an actor, he has collaborates with the theatres in Norway (Nordland Teater, Rogaland Teater) and Poland (Teatr Polski-Wrocław, Teatr Dramatyczny-Wałbrzych, Teatr Druga Strefa-Warszawa, Teatr Rozrywki-Chorzów, Teatr Szekspirowski-Gdańsk). He is a co-founder of Teatr Strefa Otwarta (actor and director). Piotr has been received awards for his work at numerous theatre festivals.

    Midsummer Scene and the Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra present a Midsummer Scene Anniversary Concert

    • C. M. Weber: Oberon (or The Elf King’s Oath) Overture
    • L. Bernstein: West Side Story Concert Suite no. 1
    • F. B. Mendelssohn: A Midsummer Night’s Dream Selection

    Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra
    Conductor: Marc Tardue (USA)
    Soprano: Andrea Marić, Tenor: Đani Stipaničev

    Museum of Modern Art Dubrovnik
    26th June 2018 at 9:30 pm

    The Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra is a professional ensemble founded in 1925, as the Dubrovnik Philharmonic, later named the Dubrovnik City Orchestra and then until 1992, the Festival Symphony Orchestra. Its members are musicians with academic education, mostly from the Zagreb Academy of Music. Many of them are excellent soloists, which is a significant contribution to the Orchestra’s musical offer. Several original composers among its members make the Orchestra particularly recognizable within the musical circuits. Its list of concerts is very long, including tours all over Europe, in the US and Indonesia. The Orchestra performs a repertoire consisting of pieces by baroque, classical and romantic composers in concert venues such as the Rector’s Palace, churches and the city squares. In 2005, Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra was awarded the «Milka Trnina» prize, which is the most prestigious musical branch award in Croatia. In 2015, Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra celebrates 90th anniversary and it received a special acknowledgement for contributing repute and promotion of Dubrovnik.

    House of Marin Držić and Midsummer Scene Festival present the scenes from Uncle Maroye by Marin Držić

    Translated and directed by Filip Krenus
    Music selected by Philip Parr
    Music performed by Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra String Quartet (Đana Kahriman and Iva Vukić – violins, Šimun Končić – viola and Mihaela Čuljak – cello), with Andrea Marić, soprano

    Cast
    James Burton (Uncle Maroye)
    Ben Cutler (Tripcheta and Scoffer Feast)
    Susan Hingley (Petruniella)
    Filip Krenus (Prologue and Ugo the German)
    Paul Sockett (Bokchilo)

    Musical programme

    • H. Purcell: I Attempt from Love’s Sickness to Fly (from The Indian Queen)
    • G. B. Pergolesi: Se tu m’ami
    • G. B. Pergolesi: Stizzoso, mio stizzoso
    • H. Purcell: When I have Often Heard Young Maids Complaining (from The Fairy Queen)
    • H. Purcell: Chaconne (from The Fairy Queen)
    • H. Purcell: Abdelazer Suite

    Uncle Maroye is the most famous comedy by the greatest Croatian Renaissance playwright Marin Držić. First performed in 1551, it remained unpublished until the 19th century only to be ressurected in 1938 at the Croatian National Theatre in Zagreb. Even though Držić’s works rank among the best of European Renaissance theatre, this pinnacle of 16th century comedy – unmached in any other Slavic literature – remained largely unknown in English language.
    Two Bards is the third collaboration of House of Marin Držić and Midsummer Scene Festival in awaking this sleeping beauty of a play and bringing it to English audiences. House of Marin Držić comissioned the first complete English translation of the play to mark 450th anniversary of Držić’s death in 2017. The main challenge in translating this play – and indeed of any other translation – was to make it truly live in English language. I gave the charaters and places English names and steeped the idiom and wordplay of Marin Držić into English trying not to betray the uniqueness of the original text. In order to make this irreverent, wildly playful comedy live in another language, I had to be irreverent in translating it.
    Dubrovnik boasts a great theatre tradition and this entire city serves as a living backdrop every summer. The pairing of House on Marin Držić and Midsummer Scene draws on that remarkable past. As the only English theatre festival in this part of Europe, Midsummer Scene opens up Dubrovnik to the English audiences, and, together with the House of Marin Držić, we also aim to bring our playwright to England.
    Our Midsummer Scene Festival ensemble, fresh from performing A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Fort Lovrjenac, presents a selection of scenes from Uncle Maroye to give you a joyful taste of how this play sounds in English and Dubrovnik Symphony Orchestra String Quartet with soprano Andrea Marić will add to it with music by Henry Purcell and Giovanni Battista Pergolesi.
    We are linking our Croatian Bard, whose work is yet to be discovered in English, with his English counterpart, whose works translate so seamlessly onto the ancient stony open air venues of Dubrovnik. Držić’s mishievous prose sparkles in the perfect setting of Shakespeare’s sonnets.

    Filip Krenus