Shakespeare in the Squares today announces its 2018 production of As You Like It, directed by Tatty Hennessy, which tours to London’s squares and parks from 20 June to 13 July. Opening up London’s glorious private squares and gardens to magical performances for Londoners and family audiences, Shakespeare in the Squares’ third production follows the company’s successful productions of Much Ado About Nothing in summer 2016 and Romeo and Juliet in summer 2017, which were performed to sell-out audiences. The tour of As You Like It will visit twice as many locations as the inaugural Shakespeare in the Squares tour in 2016.
Sue Fletcher and Martin Neild, founders of Shakespeare in the Squares, said, “For the third summer tour of Shakespeare in the Squares, we are delighted to be working again with director Tatty Hennessy to stage one of Shakespeare’s best loved comedies. As You Like It could be tailor-made for the beautiful outdoor spaces we are performing in across London, which lend themselves so perfectly to being reimagined as the Forest of Arden.”
Founded by Sue Fletcher and Martin Neild in 2016, Shakespeare in the Squares is a not-for-profit touring theatre company that stages a Shakespeare play across London squares every summer. The productions are tailored to the individual garden squares, and the company works with the garden committees and other local organisations to create a unique community celebration around the play. The company aims to provide a showcase for talented young theatre practitioners and to introduce audiences to the stars of the future.
Shakespeare in the Squares’ new production of As You Like It, Shakespeare’s enchanting comedy of love, desire and mistaken identity, is set in 1970, the year of the first Glastonbury Festival. As Shakespeare’s characters flee from the rigidity of the court to the Forest of Arden, audiences too can exchange the conformity of city life for a pastoral utopia where hippies and freethinkers meet to dance, love and put the world to rights.
