The Trinity College Dublin Shakespeare Festival got off to a typically flamboyant start on Monday with Miriam O’Callaghan speaking at its media launch in DU Players’ front of house. The event kicked off one of the biggest events on the Irish theatre community’s calendar.
Roughly 400 professional and amateur performers will be plying their trade over the eleven days of the festival. There will be over 50 outdoor performances of the great bard’s work with an estimated 250,000 expected to attend. DU Players are said to be very excited to be co-ordinating the annual Shakespeare festival and to be welcoming the GB theatre company, Britain’s largest outdoor Shakespeare company, for a special performance of “Romeo and Juliet” and “Twelfth Night” which will headline the festival at a replica Globe theatre that will be erected in front square of the college.
There will be a plethora of student-directed pieces and workshops for those who want to get more acquainted with Shakespeare’s style and techniques. Many of these master classes will be co-ordinated by Lura Dolas, founding director of the California Shakespeare Festival Conservatory and lecturer at the University of California.
The festival will be running from the 1st of June to the 11th and caps off a very successful year for DU Players that included their Oscar Wilde festival and a big growth in membership. This will be the first major test for Marc Atkinson’s newly elected committee, however with many of the same people who organized the Wilde festival behind it, it’s shaping up to be their first success as well.
Ian Curran
