Shakespeare’s Globe to perform Hamlet at United Nations Headquarters in New York on 4 August 2014

Globe Theatre Press Release

Shakespeare’s Globe announced today that it will perform its Globe to Globe Hamlet at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City, on 4 August 2014, as part of its ambitious two-year tour of Hamlet to every country on earth.

The United Nations was created in 1945 in the wake of the Second World War, to foster international co-operation between countries. Hamlet will be performed on a specially constructed stage inside the ECOSOC chamber, to an international audience.

Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director of Shakespeare’s Globe and Director of Hamlet said:

‘We have already played at the Globe, in Ivo Van Hove’s theatre in Amsterdam, in Wittenberg, in Tromsø within the Arctic Circle, in Moscow, through the Baltics, in Kiev on the eve of their elections to an audience including Vladimir Klitschko and Pietro Poroshenko, through the Balkans, in Kosovo and Sarajevo, among many other inspiring and resonant places. This is already an amazing journey with nine tenths still to go. To play at the UN is a great compliment and complement to the spirit of internationalism and talking across boundaries, which sits at the heart of this tour.’

Prior to playing at the United Nations, Hamlet will tour to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, home to the largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works in the world. Over the summer the company will travel around Central America and the Caribbean, with a performance in Mexico outside Yucatán Cathedral, the oldest cathedral on mainland America, built the year before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet. Travelling through Central America on the Pan-American highway, the company will stage Hamlet amongst the ruins of Copán in Honduras, once one of the great cities of the Mayan civilization, and will perform at the oldest theatre in Central America, the majestic Teatro Nacional de El Salvador.

In September Hamlet will be the inaugural performance at the brand new Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre. The theatre is adjacent to the site of the sixteenth-century Fencing School, a home from home for English Elizabethan players. Companies from London first arrived in Gdańsk in 1587 and over the next eighty years Poland became one of the great European havens for Shakespeare.

The Hamlet Globe to Globetour opened at Shakespeare’s Globe on 23 April 2014, the 450^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. This completely unprecedented theatrical adventure will see Hamlet tour to every single country on earth. Sixteen extraordinary men and women will travel across the seven continents, performing in a huge range of unique and atmospheric venues.

During its first leg Hamlet visited 26 countries across Europe, sailing from London aboard a beautiful schooner to Stadsschouwburg theatre in Amsterdam. Continuing the tradition of performing outdoors as travelling troupes did in Shakespeare’s time, Hamlet played to audiences at Budapest’s Margaret Island Open Air Theatre in the middle of the Danube river, at a courtyard in Prague Castle, at Heraclea, a Roman amphitheatre in southern Macedonia, and this week in Cyprus, at the ancient city of Kourion’s Greco-Roman theatre.

About Globe to Globe Hamlet

Globe to Globe Hamlet is a fresh, pared-down version of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy of deferred revenge, which will travel to every country on earth between 23 April 2014 and 23 April 2016. The company of twelve actors and four stage managers use a completely portable set to stage Hamlet in a brisk two hours and forty minutes. The production is directed by Dominic Dromgoole and Bill Buckhurst, designed by Jonathan Fensom and composed by Bill Barclay. The role of Hamlet is shared by Ladi Emeruwa and Naeem Hayat. All other male and female parts are played in rotation by Keith Bartlett, John Dougall, Miranda Foster, Phoebe Fildes, Beruce Khan, Tom Lawrence, Jennifer Leong, Rawiri Paratene, Matthew Romain and Amanda Wilkin.

·         The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse: Shakespeare’s Globe is in the final stages of fundraising for the new indoor Jacobean theatre, which opened in January 2014 with The Duchess of Malfi. For more information, please visit shakespearesglobe.com/the-sam-wanamaker-playhouse  

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·         Globe On Screen: Shakespeare’s Globe returns to cinemas in early 2014, bringing 2013’s season of triumphs to cinemas worldwide from April. Globe On Screen 2014 will feature The Tempest, Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, all captured ‘live’ in high definition. Find out more at GlobeOnScreen.com

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