YORK Shakespeare Project welcomes back Maggie Smales to direct The Taming Of The Shrew, Shakespeare’s controversial battle of the sexes, at Theatre@41, Monkgate, York, from April 23 to 27.
“We are absolutely delighted to have Maggie as our director,” says YSP chair Tony Froud. “We know that she will find an exciting way to let the play speak to us in 2024.”
This is the first time that Maggie has directed for York Shakespeare Project since her all-female version of Henry V, chosen as “York Play of the Year” in the 2015 Hutch Awards.
YSP’s multi-coloured psychedelic poster announces the production’s setting in 1970. The Sixties have shaken off the post-Second World War blues. The baby boomers are growing up, primed and ready to do their own thing. The world is opening up, promising peace, love and equality. Surely, The Times They Are a’Changin’ and the old order is dead? Or is it, asks Smales’s production.
“This will actually be my third encounter with this play,” she says. “I played in it as a youngster in Rotherham in South Yorkshire Theatre for Youth in the 1960s, then as a Bretton Hall drama student in 1970, and it was experiences of those days that gave me the inspiration for my ideas for this production.”
At the centre of the play are Kate and Petruchio, played in Franco Zeffirelli’s 1967 film version by Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. YSP’s Kate is University of York student Chesca Downes, in her first YSP role after playing a number of major roles at the university, such as the duchess in The Duchess Of Malfi.
Opposite her will be Jim Paterson, a face more familiar to YSP audiences, who will recall his lead roles in The Two Noble Kinsmen, Cymbeline and Antony And Cleopatra. He is no stranger to the part of Petruchio, having played him in Cole Porter’s musical Kiss Me Kate in 2019.
Further roles go to Rosy Rowley as Baptista Minola; Kirsty Farrow, Bianca; Mark Payton, Gremio; Nick Patrick Jones, Hortensio; Sam Jackson, Lucentio; Mark Simmonds, Vincentio; Lara Stafford, Tranio; Cari Hughes, Biondello; Stuart Green, Grumio, and Joy Warner, Merchant and Widow.
As YSP’s second cycle of staging all of Shakespeare’s plays over 25 years rolls on, The Taming Of The Shrew will be performed as part of the 2024 York International Shakespeare Festival. Tickets for the 7.30pm evening performances and 2.30pm Saturday matinee are on sale at boxoffice@41monkgate.co.uk.