Pop-up Globe Releases More Performances For Its Festival Of Shakespeare

The creators of Pop-up Globe and Live Nation today announced today that due to huge demand, an extra two weeks of performances have been released, with Pop-up Globe now scheduled to play until 4 November. Preview performances have also been added from 30 August.

Since tickets for the Sydney season went on sale on 12 June, over 22,000 tickets have been sold with some performances selling out. In fact, in just two years Pop-up Globe has become one of the most popular new theatres ever, drawing audiences of more than 450,000 people in the first 24 months including more than 150,000 attendances at its critically-acclaimed season in Melbourne earlier this year.

The world's first full-scale temporary working replica of the second Globe, the theatre Shakespeare and his company built and opened in 1614 after the first Globe theatre burned to the ground, is currently being built in the Show Ring at Sydney's Entertainment Quarter.

For a limited season, Pop-up Globe will present a spectacular festival of Shakespeare unlike Sydney has ever seen before. Pop-up Globe Founder and Artistic Director, Dr Miles Gregory, says he believes Shakespeare's work performed in the space it is written for is a completely unique and transformative experience.

"Our audiences are blown away by the immersive experience of seeing Shakespeare performed in the space for which it was written. The relationship between actor and audience, the spectacular space itself, together with the power of Shakespeare's incredible work, means attending plays at Pop-up Globe is totally different from anything you've seen before," says Gregory.

"This isn't dusty Shakespeare. This is now. Alive. Like a party," adds Gregory.

The first Globe stood for 14 years until a disastrous fire demolished it in 1613. The second Globe was rebuilt on the same foundations by Shakespeare and his company significantly modifying the original first Globe to create what became one of the most famous theatres in history. Pop-up Globe uses as its historical reference point ground-breaking research by Associate Professor Tim Fitzpatrick and Russell Emerson of the University of Sydney to create the world's first full-scale temporary working replica of Shakespeare's theatre, the second Globe.

Pop-up Globe is a three-storey, 16-sided, 900-person capacity theatre. It unites cutting-edge scaffold technology with a 400-year-old design to transport audiences back in time. No matter where they sit or stand in the theatre, audience members are never more than 15 metres from the heart of the action on stage. Sometimes they'll even find themselves in the play.

The audacious project was originally planned as a one-off in Auckland to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016. Created entirely from scratch by an international company and cast in less than 18 months, Pop-up Globe took the city by storm welcoming more than 100,000 attendees in a season extended twice by popular demand.

Following hot on the heels of this initial sell-out success, a critically-acclaimed season in Melbourne and two further seasons in Auckland have attracted another 350,000 attendances. The phenomenon resulted in international interest from leading promoters and representatives from cities around the world who travelled to New Zealand to witness it for themselves.

Live Nation, the world's leading live entertainment company, jumped at the chance to work with Pop-up Globe to secure this unique theatre experience for Australian audiences.

Luke Hede, Vice President Live Nation Australasia said, "Live Nation has a great history of presenting only the very best live performances and we are thrilled to be able to bring this extraordinary production to Sydney audiences after our wonderful Melbourne season. Pop-up Globe is the most exciting theatre project we've seen in a long time and even more exciting that it is coming out of our part of the world".

The Pop-up Globe theatre is being constructed on the Show Ring at Entertainment Quarter over a period of six weeks, and will feature all the spectacular theatrical trickery of the Jacobean era, including riotous comedy, gruesome battles, litres of fake blood, hand-forged armoury and more than 450 beautiful bespoke period costumes pieces specially constructed by the Pop-up Globe in-house wardrobe department. Capped with an onion dome, Pop-up Globe will be a remarkable feature of the Sydney cityscape, just as the second Globe was in London.

For its Sydney season, Pop-up Globe brings with it a festival of four critically-acclaimed productions - magical fantasy A Midsummer Night's Dream, haunting blood-soaked tragedy Macbeth, controversial comedy The Merchant of Venice, and laugh-out-loud slapstick The Comedy of Errors.

Two casts perform the four plays in repertory. The all-male Buckingham's cast perform A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Merchant of Venice, while the Southampton's cast perform Macbeth and The Comedy of Errors. The Buckingham's players are Will Alexander,

Patrick Carroll, Josh Cramond, Jade Daniels, Peter Daube, Patrick Griffin, James Haxby, Chris Huntly-Turner, Max Loban, Jonathan Martin, Cameron Moore, Kahukura Royal, Jason Te Kare, Asalemo Tofete and Thomas Wingfield. The Southampton's company cast includes Ryan Bennett, Amanda Billing, Oliver Burton, Serena Cotton, Julia Guthrey, Romy Hooper, Greg Johnson, Blake Kubena, Mia Landgren, Nigel Langley, Stephen Lovatt, Matu Ngaropo, Hugh Sexton and Jason Will.

Dr Gregory says "We can't wait to share with Sydney-siders the magic of Shakespeare performed in the space for which it was written. The game's afoot!"

For tickets and more details, go to popupglobe.com.au.

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