Damien Ryan Adapts Shakespeare's History Cycle for Sport for Jove's 10th Anniversary Summer Season

This summer Sport for Jove celebrates ten incredible years of theatre-making, ten summers of thrilling and surprising outdoor theatre, with our most immersive and ambitious season yet: Shakespeare's Rose Riot.

Rose Riot is Artistic Director Damien Ryan's furious new adaptation of Shakespeare's extraordinary history cycle, covering a hundred years of riotous humanity and a pantheon of the earth's most remarkable political thinkers and drinkers, warriors and clowns, villains, heroines and despots. From Richard II to Henry IV, Harry and Kate Percy, Falstaff and Henry V, Joan of Arc, Henry VI, the Queens Margaret and Elizabeth, Richard Plantagenet, the Lady Anne and her lover 'misshapen Dick'.

"The history cycle is the work of a young Shakespeare tackling a wild, bold, daring, dangerous feat of storytelling and is among his most illuminating and prescient creations," said Ryan. "It's not just the extraordinary battles, political factionalism and its revolving door of new kings and queens, it is its sheer humanity that draws me to it. It is extravagant, violent, funny, fierce and very moving. It could be described as history's greatest leadership spills.

"We've waited ten years to brings this epic, seething cycle to the outdoor festival and can't wait to unleash these productions this summer with a brilliant cast of some of our most cherished actors."

They welcome back many festival veterans to mark the tenth anniversary including James Lugton (Macbeth, Taming of the Shrew), Eloise Winestock (Romo & Juliet, As You Like It, The Tempest), Bernadette Ryan (A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It), Tim Walter (Ear to the Edge of Time, Love's Labour's Lost, Much Ado About Nothing) Lizzie Schebesta (Measure for Measure, The Comedy for Errors), Francesca Savige (All's Well That Ends Well, Twelfth Night), Christopher Stalley (Cyrano de Bergerac, All's Well That Ends Well) Terry Karabelas (The Taming of the Shrew, The Comedy of Errors, Romeo and Juliet) and Christopher Tomkinson (Hamlet, Cyrano de Bergerac, The Taming of the Shrew). They will star alongside exceptional artists joining the festival for the first time, including Emma Palmer (Playschool ABC, Kindertransport Darlinghurst Theatre Company), Bronwyn Lim (The River at the End of the Road) and Damon Manns (Infini Vertical Entertainment).

Encompassing The Hills Shakespeare in the Park at Bella Vista Farm and Leura Shakespeare Festival at Leura Everglades Gardens, Sport for Jove's Summer Season has been bringing world class theatre to Sydney's west and the mountains for ten years. This season The Hollow Crown (Richard II, Henry IV, Henry V) and The Wars of the Roses (Henry VI, Richard III) will be presented as two distinct but linked productions. Audiences can enjoy either show as a standalone production or experience full the cycle by seeing both.

Bookings: www.sportforjove.com.au

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