Shakespeare's Globe 2013 Season Opens Public Booking Today

Building on the achievements of 2012, Shakespeare's Globe opens public booking for the 2013 theatre season today, 11 February. 'Season of Plenty' follows a watershed year at the Globe and offers theatre's brightest talents in a rich season of fifteen plays, including three world premières, an expansion of the Globe's award-winning touring, and the return of three Globe to Globe productions from last year's once-in-a-lifetime festival.

Opening the season on 23 April 2013, Roger Allam will make a welcome return to the Globe as Prospero in Jeremy Herrin's production of The Tempest. Allam won the Best Actor Olivier Award for his portrayal of Falstaff at the Globe in Henry IV Parts 1 and 2. Other recent credits include the film Tamara Drewe and the BBC's The Thick Of It. Making his Globe debut will be Colin Morgan as Ariel, who created the role of Merlin in the popular BBC television series for which he recently won Best Actor in a Drama at the National Television Awards. Jessie Buckley, who competed in the TV casting for a new Nancy, I'd Do Anything, will play Miranda. Director Jeremy Herrin returns to the Globe following his widely applauded production of Much Ado About Nothing in 2011.

Continuing the season's theme of enchantment, one of Shakespeare's most magical comedies A Midsummer Night's Dream will be directed by the Globe's Artistic Director Dominic Dromgoole. Michelle Terry, winner of the 2011 Olivier Award for Tribes at the Royal Court and last at the Globe in Love's Labour's Lost, returns in the Dream as Titania. Macbeth concludes the season's trio of supernatural Shakespeares, and the Globe has invited stage and screen actress Eve Best to make her directorial debut at the helm of the Scottish play, with Joseph Millson (Rocket to the Moon at the National and Much Ado at the RSC) in the title role.

Opening at York Theatre Royal in June, the Globe will tour Shakespeare's three powerful plays about Henry VI and a country racked by civil war, visiting theatres and battlefields across the UK. Site-specific performances of Harry The Sixth, The Houses Of York And Lancaster and The True Tragedy Of The Duke Of York will be staged at the historic battle sites of the Wars of the Roses - Towton, Tewkesbury, St Albans and Barnet - during its run at the Globe. Nick Bagnall directs.

Returning to its passion for new writing, the Globe will present three world premières in 2013. Gabriel, an unprecedented musical and theatrical event will unite one of the world's finest trumpet soloists, Alison Balsom - twice crowned 'Female Artist of the Year' at the Classic BRIT Awards - award-winning writer Samuel Adamson and director Dominic Dromgoole, with Trevor Pinnock as musical consultant. Featuring Purcell and Handel played by The English Concert, the play brings to life real and imagined characters including Mary II and Queen Anne, as well as the composers, patrons, musicians and audience of a vibrant and musical seventeenth century London.

Blue Stockings by Jessica Swale is the director's debut play which tells the eye-opening story of the first female students at Cambridge University and the prejudice they faced at the turn of the twentieth century. Globe regular John Dove directs. Closing the season will be Ché Walker's anarchic take on Euripides' The Bacchae, The Lightning Child, directed by Matthew Dunster and with songs by Arthur Darvill - the creative team behind The Frontline at the Globe.

The Globe's award-winning UK and internationAl Small-scale tours, which have become annual fixtures of the summer's theatrical calendar, will once again set off to new, adventurous destinations. King Lear, directed by Bill Buckhurst, will be the Globe's first tour into Istanbul, and an all-female cast of The Taming of the Shrew directed by Joe Murphy, will travel to Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing following visits to many venues across the UK. Joseph Marcell, best known as Geoffrey in The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and last at the Globe in Much Ado About Nothing, will play Lear. Joining him as Gloucester is the New Zealand stage and screen actor Rawiri Paratene, star of Whale Rider, who performed in the Maori Troilus and Cressida which opened Globe to Globe.

The ambition of the Globe to Globe festival lives on, as Shakespeare's Globe welcomes back the Isango Ensemble from South Africa with their joyous Venus and Adonis, Georgia's Marjanishvili Theatre return with their exquisite As You Like It, and the world's bravest theatre company Belarus Free Theatre bring back their provocative production of King Lear. Completing the international schedule is Footsbarn who return to the Globe with their carnival mix of street theatre, circus and mime bringing their tour of Indian Tempest. The breadth of Globe to Globe's achievement was recently celebrated with a Special Award at the Critics Circle Awards.

The Globe on Screen season launches internationally with Shakespeare's Globe releasing three of its 2012 theatre productions to cinemas from April. Henry V, Twelfth Night, and The Taming of The Shrew will be coming to screens in the USA, Australia, New Zealand and the UK. For more information about the cinema season, visit the official website at www.globeonscreen.com.

Public booking for the theatre season opens today, 11 February 2013. Tickets are available through the box office: 020 7401 9919 or online www.shakespearesglobe.com. 700 £5 tickets are available for every performance.

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