PROGRAM
FRIDAY 5 MAY
IL FESTINO
6pm - concert - farty bard singers - buy tickets
A musical comedy Elizabethan style - enjoy the magic and nonsense of this wonderful acappella work composed in 1609 by Banchieri - a monk from Italy. It's raucous and rowdy - cheeky and beautiful. from sublime love poetry to drinking songs to a canon of ridiculous animal noises. Sung in English. With guest appearance from Burra’s own Will Peterson.
TAVERN CHOIR
7pm - workshop - farty bard singers - just turn up
Pub choir - renaissance style! Come and sing a few of the greatest drinking songs from Thomas Ravenscroft, one of the most prolific songwriters of the genre. Everyone’s welcome.
SATURDAY 6 MAY
MEDIEVAL MUSIC JAM
11am - workshop - Lyrebyrd Consort - just turn up
Learn to play or sing medieval music! Bring your instruments, percussion or voice and discover how to improvise music from before the time of Shakespeare. Including early English songs Miri it is and Sumer is icumen in. Everyone is welcome - beginner to advanced. If you don't have an instrument come anyway, we'll find you something.
A MEDIEVAL & RENAISSANCE MUSICAL SHOWCASE
1.30pm - concert - Lyrebyrd Consort & Cacofonix - buy tickets
Travel back in time to the Middle Ages and Renaissance to hear music Shakespeare might have heard. From the only surviving song by a female Troubadour to a gorgeous lament by Anne Boleyn. Not to mention jolly folk songs and merry dances. Come to hear very early music and its stories, as well as see authentic early instruments including lute, viol, crumhorn, cornemuse, vielle, rebec, oud and psaltery.
PERFORMING SHAKESPEARE
3pm - workshop - Tony Knight/MNTG - register
Actors’ Studio teacher Tony Knight (former head of acting at NIDA) will work with members of the Mid North Theatre Group in an open workshop on Shakespeare monologues. Everyone is welcome to come and watch one of Australia’s top acting teachers work with local actors. If you’d like to participate as an actor, please register. and choose a monologue or poem.
LOVE, FLATULENCE & OTHER PROBLEMS
6.30pm - theatre - Actors’ Studio Players - buy tickets
Tony Knight is bringing a performing troupe from South Australia’s Actors’ Studio, to present a variety show of comic Shakespearean scenes, including a very very very abridged Hamlet. Burra local and theatre academic Dr Will Peterson will present a pre-show talk, with tips on ‘getting into’ Shakespeare.
BUBBLE, BUBBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE: THE GAME
8pm - gaming - RYT - this workshop is now full - you go on the waiting list
Riverland Youth Theatre's Games Master, Jay Green runs an interactive dungeons and dragons game based on MacBeth. The party adventures through the underwater kingdom of Bryntun after a long, drawn-out war. When King Duncan is killed during the night, the room is full of suspects! Game written by Tessa Simpson. Join us for a fast-paced and ridiculous interactive game. please register.
SUNDAY 7 MAY
VIRTUAL REALITY
10am - workshop - RYT - register
Perform in Romeo and Juliette! This virtual reality immersive experience gives you the opportunity to perform on a Shakespearean stage with words appearing in front of your eyes. Use virtual reality to understand staging and performance and tell your goddamn lover that it is still night and you could totally make out for another few hours before he flees the city (but in fancy language and stuff). please register.
SHAKESPEARE’S FOOLS
2.30pm - pre show talk- Dr Robert Phiddian - just turn up
Dr Robert Phiddian (Professor Of English at Flinders University) will present a preshow talk on Shakespeare’s fools, demonstrated by some of the more foolish actors from Butterfly Theatre.
SHAKESPEARE IN THE NORTH
3pm - theatre - Butterfly Theatre - buy tickets
Butterfly Theatre finishes the festival with a flourish, drawing together Shakespeare’s best bits - Songs, Sonnets and Speeches exploring Love and Loss, with original music threaded through the show - composed for Butterfly Theatre by Burra's own Jodie O'Regan. Directed by Tony Knight, the show has toured wineries, festivals, theatres, pubs and parks and now comes North, with Shakespeare's insults added for the occasion.