The Everyman & Playhouse are delighted to announce a collaboration with Shakespeare’s Globe on two plays in 2016, the bard’s 400th anniversary year. Everyman & Playhouse Associate Director Nick Bagnall will direct The Two Gentlemen of Verona which will play a number of venues in Britain and abroad before dates at the Everyman while Jonathan Pryce leads the cast in The Merchant of Venice at the Playhouse ahead of a world tour.
The Two Gentlemen of Verona will be presented by Shakespeare’s Globe and Liverpool Everyman & Playhouse. The co-production will play in a number of venues nationally and internationally, including Chilham Castle, before returning back to the U.K. at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse from September and finishing at the Everyman in October. Nick’s previous productions at Shakespeare’s Globe include Henry VI: Parts I, II and III (2013), The Last Days of Troy (2014) and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2014). As Associate Director, last year Nick directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Odyssey: Missing, Presumed Dead to great acclaim at the Everyman. His other credits include Entertaining Mr Sloane (Trafalgar Studios) and Betrayal (Crucible Theatre, Sheffield).
The play forms part of the first season of plays under Shakespeare’s Globe’s new Artistic Director Emma Rice with Nick among a select number of directors working with the Globe during Shakespeare’s 400th anniversary year.
Everyman & Playhouse Associate Director Nick Bagnall said, “It is such an honour to be directing Two Gents in Emma Rice’s first season at the Globe. I have admired and been amazed by her work from afar for so many years so to be amongst such an exciting line up of directors in her Wonder Season is a true highlight of my career so far. I can’t wait to get to work on reimagining this most wonderful of plays for such a diverse set of stages including castles and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse before bringing it to the Everyman.”
The theatres are thrilled that Everyman alumnus Jonathan Pryce will be returning to the city in The Merchant of Venice which will open at the Playhouse in June. The multi-award-winning actor will reprise his role as Shylock in the critically acclaimed production that was first on the Globe stage last year. Jonathan Munby’s production will tour nationally and internationally following the Liverpool dates.
Jonathan Pryce was a member of a number of the Everyman acting companies early in his career and was Artistic Director of the theatre during the renowned 1974/5 season. He was last on stage in Liverpool in 2009 in The Caretaker. His extensive theatre work includes Comedians in London and on Broadway, for which he won a Tony Award, Hamlet in London, for which he received an Olivier Award, and Miss Saigon, in which he starred on both sides of the Atlantic, winning further Olivier and Tony awards. His screen credits include High Sparrow in Game of Thrones, Cardinal Wolsey in Wolf Hall, Carrington (for which he won the Cannes Film Festival and Evening Standard Awards for Best Actor), Evita and Tomorrow Never Dies.
Everyman & Playhouse Executive Director Deborah Aydon said, “We are thrilled to be working so closely with the Globe this year, as this glorious theatre moves from one visionary artistic director to another. And we’re very happy to bring Jonathan Pryce back into the bosom of his Liverpool theatre family in this hugely acclaimed production.”
Tickets for The Merchant of Venice will go on sale on Tuesday 1st March and The Two Gentlemen of Verona will be on sale from Wednesday 1st June.