Talking tartan: Helen Wilson performing at York Shakespeare Project’s socially distanced Sit-down Sonnets in the churchyard at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, York, last September
YORK Shakespeare Project is issuing a call-out for a director for this year’s outdoor sonnet performances.
“We would like to hear from people interested in directing Sonnet Walks/Sit-down Sonnets 2021, our annual open-air production incorporating selections from Shakespeare’s sonnets in a devised framework,” says YSP’s Tony Froud.
Masked up: The poster for last September’s graveyard smash, Sit-down Sonnets
“Last September, our Sit-down Sonnets, staged by director Mick Taylor at a socially distanced Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, were welcomed by performers and audiences alike. Now, in these continuing uncertain times, we would like to mount a new production of the sonnets.”
When and where that can happen remains to be seen, says Tony. “No dates have been set but we expect this to be later in the summer, and we want to appoint someone with a strong idea for this year’s production so that we can begin work on making it happen.”
The director’s role is not a professional appointment. If you are interested, please contact Tony Froud at yorkshakespeareproject@gmail.com to receive more details.
Picture this: Mick Liversidge performing at York Shakespeare Project’s Sit-down Sonnets in 2020
Helen Wilson dons the tartan and the Scottish accent for Sit-down Sonnets. All pctures: John Saunders
York Shakespeare Project, Sit-down Sonnets, Holy Trinity churchyard, Goodramgate, York, until September 12, 5.45pm and 7pm daily, plus 4.15pm on Saturday. Box office: yorktheatreroyal.co.uk
YORK Shakespeare Project’s last production was Antony And Cleopatra in October 2019, leaving only two to complete the 20-year cycle of presenting all of his plays.
Next up should have been Macbeth, but sure enough, if anything could de-rail the stately progress to the finishing post, it would have to be the Scottish play, the one afeared by the theatre world at large.
Lo and behold, its curse struck again, only a week to go to opening night for Leo Doulton’s production, when the Covid-19 lockdown put a stop to everything. Who knows when to expect the return of the Mac, but in the meantime YSP keeps busy with Zoom play readings each month, under the guise of the Quarantine Players, and now with the Sit-down Sonnets, a variation on YSP’s Sonnet Walks around York.
If the hat fits: Mick Liversidge
The Churches Conservation Trust is keen for Holy Trinity to play host to more outdoor performances amid its gravestones, mown grass, five benches and trees, and tucked away from the Goodramgate shoppers, it is a delightful haven for theatre or music.
YSP has frequented the churchyard previously, as a stopping point to deliver a Sonnet Walk, but now comes a full-scale 45-minute production to a seated audience, spread out with social distancing in “ten social bubbles or 20 souls, whichever maximum we reach first”.
Producer Maurice Crichton’s invitation to review came with a covering note and a request: “As always we think part of the delight of live theatre is surprise,” he wrote, and he is right on that score, along with his advice to bring a rug, a cushion, a camp chair, maybe a flask and a packet of biscuits.
“The conceit of this show is that it is a selection of Shakespeare’s characters in the present day paired with a sonnet. I wonder which character will be next? I wonder which character would be dressed like that? I wonder which sonnet this character is going to have? Who is [YSP founder] Frank Brogan playing this time?
Where there’s a Will: Margaret Hillier
“These are questions we want to be a part of the show. For that reason, we are holding back our [printed] ‘programme’ to the end. It’s a memento that confirms what the audience has seen, not a spoiler of what they are about to see.
“Our polite request is that you don’t spoil everything by publishing everything we have.”
Your reviewer could not have put it better than the ever-eloquent former solicitor Mr Crichton, m’lud. Covid-19 has done so much spoiling already in 2020 that another killjoy would not be appropriate.
Suffice to say, director Mick Taylor, bearing a rod as if he were Prospero, guides the audience into the fast-flowing performance of ten sonnets, pointing out how Shakespeare himself was blighted by pandemics, with theatres being closed for more than six years between 1603 and 1613.
He makes way for 11 YSP luminaries to take on the guise of familiar Shakespeare characters but now in a modern context, be they a grave digger or a nurse, as they reflect on lockdown, isolation, masks, social distancing and the NHS.
Mick Taylor looks on as Emily Hansen performs her Sit-down Sonnet
The shadow of Covid hangs heavy over their apposite sonnet choices: ‘mourn’ ‘fever’ ‘absent in the spring’ and ‘epitaph’ all leap out from the titles, but so do ‘summer’s day’ and ‘love’ and, in turn, a love of theatre. Sadness, resilience and grave humour sit side by side as resonance and relevance abound in this pandemic-blighted contemporary context.
How else could Mick Taylor end but with Puck’s epilogue, If We Shadows Have Offended, from A Midsummer Night’s Dream – the very play that would suit a Holy Trinity churchyard staging.
In deference to the YSP request, I shall remain muzzled – an alternative to the de rigueur mask worn by Shakespeare on the show poster and programme cover – as to who each actor plays, but step forward for a closing burst of applause: Di Starr, Emily Hansen, Emilie Knight, a tartaned Helen Wilson, Mick Liversidge, Frank Brogan, Phyllis Carson-Smith, Nigel Evans, Sue Harris, Judith Ireland and Margaret Hillier, Will quill in hand.
The rest is silenced.
York Shakespeare Project’s poster for Sit-down Sonnets: note the Bard’s on-trend mask and trainers
Mick Taylor, York Shakespeare Project’s director for Sit-down Sonnets, aptly takes a seat for last Saturday’s rehearsal at the Rowntree Park amphitheatre
YORK’S purveyors of Shakespeare’s Sonnet Walks are staging a sit-down, but not as an act of protest.
Instead, the mood will be celebratory as York Shakespeare Project present a special production of Shakespeare’s sonnets from Friday, allowing audiences to enjoy live theatre outdoors.
YSP’s Sit-down Sonnets can be seen at the Holy Trinity churchyard, in Goodramgate, where the 45-minute production will feature Shakespearean characters responding to the pandemic, each sharing a famous Shakespeare sonnet as part of their monologue.
“The conceit this time is that the sonneteers are well-known Shakespeare characters in the present day, coping as best they can with lockdown,” says producer Maurice Crichton. “In what is now time-honoured fashion, each has a sonnet to tee up, the pairing of character and sonnet hopefully opening up some unknown sonnets in an accessible way and giving some well-known ones a new angle.
York Shakespeare Project cast members Shirley Williams, left, and Di Starr performing Shakespeare’s Sonnet Walks in 2019 in the churchyard at Holy Trinity, Goodramgate, where Sit-down Sonnets will open on Friday
“Thinking of some of the characters I’ve played, I wondered how might they each be placed? Ulysses is no longer troubled that Achilles won’t come out of his tent because all the Greeks are stuck under canvas waiting for the latest R number estimates.
“Claudius is annoyed he’s had to postpone his marriage to Gertrude but is relieved there are no trains home from Wittenburg for Hamlet to catch; Feste can’t sing in public, so he’s planning an online concert from a willow cabin he’s constructing at Olivia’s gate…It’s a fun game to play and not just with Shakespeare.”
Conceived and directed by Mick Taylor and produced by Crichton, the sonnets show will be performed by Frank Brogan; Nigel Evans; Emily Hansen; Sue Harris; Margaret Hillier; Judith Ireland; Emilie Knight; Mick Liversidge; Phyllis Carson-Smith; Di Starr; Mick Taylor himself and Helen Wilson, “sharpening up her Miss Jean Brodie act”.
As to who they will play, Maurice teases: “We are being coy about which Shakespeare characters you will see…but Mick has had some fun pulling a script together.”
Note the face mask: York Shakespeare Project’s topical poster for September’s Sit-down Sonnets
For the past few years, the York community theatre company has produced Sonnet Walks, a guided walk around York where the audience meets a range of connected characters with a story to tell and a Shakespearean sonnet to share.
Now comes the sit-down variation, under Taylor’s direction. “Like everyone involved with theatre, we’ve missed being able to enjoy and take part in live performance,” he says. “Having staged the Sonnet Walks previously, we knew that, as a format, it could be adapted in a way that would allow us to perform to a seated audience outdoors. And Holy Trinity is a beautiful place to do it: a leafy sanctuary in the centre of the city.”
Explaining the 2020 format, Mick says: “In these Sit-down Sonnets, we’ve taken some of Shakespeare’s most memorable characters and written new monologues for them as they find themselves in the middle of this pandemic.
“How might things have turned out for them if they’d been stuck in lockdown? How can Brutus get near to Caesar to put his knife in when all the senate meetings are on Zoom? Where can Romeo get his fateful poison if the apothecary’s on furlough? And how much hand sanitiser will Lady Macbeth get through? They’ll share their thoughts on a world of lockdowns, masks and social distancing, along with a sonnet that reflects their feelings.”
How prescient: York Shakespeare Project founder Frank Brogan predicts the end of the world in last summer’s Shakespeare’s Sonnet Walks. Cue Covid-19…
Making an historical link, Mick points out: “Shakespeare himself was no stranger to the impact a pandemic can have on theatre. Between 1603 and 1613, the theatres were closed for a total of six and a half years. Thankfully, we can return in performances like this a little sooner!”
York Shakespeare Project were just over a week away from the opening night for their spring production of Macbeth when lockdown began in late-March, stalling the 20-year mission to produce all of Shakespeare’s known plays by 2021 on the home straight, when only two big hitters, Macbeth and The Tempest, were left to perform.
Committee member Tony Froud says: “We were obviously very disappointed to have to postpone Macbeth and, like other companies, we are waiting to see how and when indoor live performance can safely return before deciding when we can prepare to stage the plays again.
“That’s why we’re so pleased to be able to perform Shakespeare in front of an audience in this way. Mick and Maurice have done a tremendous job in a short amount of time to prepare a production that audiences can enjoy safely and that brings the beauty of the sonnets to life in new ways.
Take a seat: York Shakespeare Project’s Sit-down Sonnets cast members listen to director Mick Taylor, fourth from right, when rehearsing in Rowntree Park, York, last weekend
“We hope that people will be able to join us for what should be a fun and unique performance, and a long-overdue chance to watch live theatre.”
YSP pass on their thanks to the Churches Conservation Trust and the volunteers at Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, for accommodating Sit-Down Sonnets this summer.
“We looked at Dean’s Park and the Museum Gardens but in both cases that would have involved opening late specially for us,” says Maurice. “Last year, Ed van der Molen at Holy Trinity Church was very responsive to our idea of bringing our Sonnet Walks through the churchyard and this year even more so: he could not have been more welcoming.
“The review in The Press last year said: ‘What can be more lovely than a marriage of Shakespeare’s golden verse and York’s heritage’. Holy Trinity is a jewel in York’s heritage and its churchyard a haven in the city centre. It was our first choice for trying out this new format.”
Frank Brogan in rehearsal for the Sit-down Sonnets
The Covid-secure Sit-down Sonnets will be presented from September 4 to 12 (except September 7) at 5.45pm and 7pm nightly, bolstered each Saturday by a 4.15pm matinee.
“The audience capacity is ten social bubbles or 20 souls, whichever maximum we reach first,” says Maurice. “We don’t really know how it will feel to have a static show rather than a walk, but the sonnets will come thicker and faster and it will be colder, so dress warmly.
“There are five park benches in the churchyard, which we will be using, so a cushion would be a useful thing to bring, as would a rug and a camp chair. Maybe a flask and a packet of biscuits too.
“We’re delighted to see that the latest weather forecast for this week’s opening performances is: Friday, 16C, 5% chance of rain, 11mph breeze; Saturday, 15C, 6% chance of rain, 9mph breeze.”
Tickets are available at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk, priced at £7 for adults, £4 for 14-17 year olds, and two under-14s may accompany each adult for free. To find out more about dates, tickets and the production, go to: yorkshakespeareproject.org.
