Bristol Shakespeare Festival

The Bristol Shakespeare Festival is a professional open air theatre festival founded in 2004 and held annually in the parks and green spaces of the city of Bristol.

The festival is a not for profit organisation dedicated to bringing the freshest, most exciting productions of Shakespeare's plays to some of Bristol's most beautiful and unusual spaces every summer. It claims to be the largest professional open air Shakespeare festival in the UK.^[1]

Running during the month of July, the festival plays host to a wide range of theatre companies, usually between seven and ten full professional productions, from ac

Contents 1 Festival Directors 2 Festival Producers 3 The Bristol Shakespeare Festival Company 4 Season history 5 References

Festival Directors

• 2004 - 2008: Miles Gregory
• 2008 - 2009: Louise Hill
• 2009 - 2011 : Grace Wessels
• 2011 - : Emma Henry

Festival Producers

• 2009 - : Natalie Cross

The Bristol Shakespeare Festival Company

The Bristol Shakespeare Festival Company was founded in 2008 by Louise Hill as the sister theatre company to the Bristol Shakespeare Festival, the largest outdoor Shakespeare festival in the UK. Grace Wessels and Natalie Cross took over the company in 2009

The BSFC aims to promote innovative and abstract ways of staging Shakespeare in new indoor spaces around Bristol.

Season history

2004

• Much Ado About Nothing (Queen Square, British Touring Shakespeare Company)
• Macbeth (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• The Comedy of Errors (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• The Taming of the Shrew (Brandon Hill, Spotlights)

2005

• The Tempest (Various parks, Citric Acid Productions)
• Hamlet (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Much Ado About Nothing (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Pride and Prejudice, (Bristol Zoo, Illyria)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream, (Queen Square, British Touring Shakespeare Company)
• Charley's Aunt (Queen Square, British Touring Shakespeare Company)
• Macbeth (Ashton Court, The Lord Chamberlain's Men)
• The Comedy of Errors (Bristol Zoo, Illyria)

2006

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Queen Square, The Lord Chamberlain's Men)
• Romeo and Juliet (Queen Square, Heartbreak Productions)
• The Importance of Being Earnest (Queen Square, Heartbreak Productions)
• Macbeth (Bristol Zoo Gardens, Illyria)
• Twelfth Night (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• The Wind in the Willows (Bristol Zoo Gardens, Illyria)

2007

• Romeo and Juliet (Queen Square, The Lord Chamberlain's Men)
• The Wizard of Oz (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Twelfth Night (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Romeo and Juliet (Queen Square, Shakespeare's Globe Theatre)
• The Merchant of Venice (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Cry Blue Murder! (Queen Square, Heartbreak Productions)
• Much Ado About Nothing (Bristol Zoo Gardens, Illyria)
• Robin Hood (Bristol Zoo Gardens, Illyria)

2008

• A Midsummer Night's Dream (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Peter Pan (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Charley's Aunt (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Henry V (Ashton Court, Heartbreak Productions)
• Romeo and Juliet (Brandon Hill, Globe Theatre)
• The Merry Wives of Windsor (Bristol Zoo Gardens, Illyria)
• The Winter's Tale (Brandon Hill, Globe Theatre)
• Much Ado About Nothing (Queen Square, The Lord Chamberlain's Men)
• Pinocchio (Bristol Zoo Gardens, Illyria)
• Twelfth Night (Bierkeller Theatre, RoughHouse Theatre)

2009

• A Midsummer Night's Dream (Globe Theatre, Ashton Court Mansion Gardens)
• Much Ado About Nothing - (Bristol University, Alma Tavern Theatre)
• The Taming of the Shrew - (Full Tilt, Ashton Court Mansion Gardens)
• Twelfth Night - (The Lord Chamberlain's Men, Queen Square)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream - (Illyria, Bristol Zoo)
• As You Like It - (Heartbreak Productions, Ashton Court Mansion Gardens)
• Iago - (Bristol Shakespeare Festival Company, Upstairs at the Lansdown and Zoo Venues, Edinburgh)^[2]

2010

• The Tempest - (The Lord Chamberlain's Men, Queen Square)
• Love in Shakespeare - (Heartbreak Productions, Ashton Court Mansion Gardens)
• Romeo and Juliet - (Miracle Theatre Company, Caldicot Castle)
• A Midsummer Night's Dream - (Oddsocks Productions, Blaise Castle Estate)
• Loves Labour's Lost - (University of the West of England Drama Society, UWE St. Mattias Campus)
• Romeo and Juliet - (Illyria, Bristol Zoo Gardens)
• Comedy of Errors - (Globe Theatre, Ashton Court Mansion Gardens)
• Taming - (Bristol Shakespeare Festival Company, The Tobacco Factory Brewery Theatre)

References