US President Barack
Obama visited us today, as we mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death this weekend. The President was welcomed into the
Globe Theatre by the cast of Hamlet, home from their two-year
tour to 197 countries.
The Hamlet company performed a selection of scenes from the
production for the President. The
company have returned home for the weekend for four final performances, having
travelled over 300,000 km and played 293 performances at 202
venues in 197 countries.
Dominic Dromgoole, our Artistic Director:
“At the end of
an extraordinary journey all around the world, it is great to return home to
the Globe, and to be able to perform a few scenes and to be welcomed home by
President Barack Obama. The spirit of ‘Yes we can’ has informed the entire
tour, and it’s an honour to meet the man who coined the phrase, and who
exemplifies its spirit.”
Due to popular demand for tickets to Globe to Globe Hamlet’s final performances at the Globe on Saturday 23 and Sunday 24 April, we’re partnering with TodayTix to offer a lottery of tickets for each performance.
There will be 25 yard (standing) tickets available via the TodayTix app for each of the four performances. The digital lottery will open on Monday 18 April and close on Friday 22 April. Winners will be notified that day and given the opportunity to purchase £5 tickets for their selected performance.
Tap on the Globe to Globe Hamlet lottery. Select the performance that you’d like to see and enter up to two tickets. The entry period will begin each day at midnight, and continue until winners are notified via email or push notification.
You can pay for your tickets via the app and they will be delivered directly to the “My Order” section. Please add lottery@todaytix.com to your list of approved contacts.
Winners have one hour to claim their tickets in-app. If unclaimed, tickets will be offered to other entrants.
Visit todaytix.com to find out more about the app.
Due to security reasons we were unable to perform in Niger, Mali and Burkina Faso during our two year tour. Instead we will be reaching audiences from these countries who are living in France for a special one off performance at the UNESCO Headquarters. We are delighted to be working with UNESCO after been granted patronage for the project in 2014.
The show will be on 28 March in Paris. To book, follow the links:
Our Globe to Globe Hamlet aims to play to every country in the world by 23 April, the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death.
We’re proud to announce that on on Wednesday 3 February,
the Hamlet company will perform at theJungle refugee camp in Calais, France.
The show will be performed
to residents of the camp, in partnership with Good Chance, a temporary theatre based in the Jungle which offers a
varied programme of art, theatre and music events.
The Jungle refugee camp is an ad hoc
encampment of around 6000 people, who have made trans-continental journeys from
their home countries for a wide array of reasons. Residents of the camp come
from countries all across Africa and the Middle East.
On 8 February, they will perform to Libyan migrants at the Salesian Theatre in Malta.
“This performance will be yet another wonderful example
of this ground-breaking tour’s ability to reach displaced people across the
world. It’s a privilege that our Hamlet company
will be able to
perform in the Calais Jungle and our thanks go to Good Chance for enabling this.”
Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director of
Shakespeare’s Globe
“We are delighted to
welcome Shakespeare’s Globe’s Hamlet
to the Jungle. As a production which has travelled to audiences all over the
world, it is fitting that it visits the camp here in Calais, where the fault
lines of over 20 different nations meet. The Good Chance Theatre welcomes
people of all ages and nationalities to share in the different cultures and
traditions that provide the only positive aspect of this situation. The
production is a message of solidarity with the people here, and testament to
the power of theatre to unite.”
Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson, Artistic Directors
of Good Chance
Learn more about our Globe to Globe company’s extraordinary travels on the blog. You can also explore our Hamlet exhibit on Google Cultural Institute.
Hamlet will return to Shakespeare’s Globe on 23 and 24 April for a final celebratory performance weekend. Keep an eye on our website and sign up to our newsletter to be the first to find out about the latest production news.
Over
the weekend of 23 - 24 April 2016,
specially created short films of each of Shakespeare’s plays will be shown on
screens along the banks of the Thames from Westminster Bridge
to Tower Bridge. The films will be free and accessible for all, with each of the 37 screens showing one film on a loop for the duration of the weekend.
Featuring
some of the UK’s best-known actors, the films will be shot on location,
capturing the astonishing breadth of Shakespeare’s global imagination, from
Cleopatra beside the Pyramids to Shylock in Venice’s Jewish ghetto, or Hamlet
on the rocks of Elsinore. The films will be directed by a selection of talented
young directors and each will include fresh material,
interwoven with Globe on Screen titles, footage from the BFI’s Silent
Shakespeare films and newly created animation.
“Shakespeare spent half his
life in London, wrote all his plays there, and presented them all beside the
Thames…We think it is suitable and fitting that the huge range of his work
should be celebrated 400 years after his death in a big free public event,
utilising the very latest technology, along a public walkway beside the same
dirty old river, so rich with history. The ability to make these films in
so many different countries, and to show them in an equal number, will be a further
celebration of Shakespeare’s astonishing reach into the world.” - Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director
The
anniversary weekend will also celebrate the return of the unprecedented
world tour of Hamlet, which will play on the Globe stage for four final
performances, after an extraordinary two years performing in every country in
the world.
Our two-year Hamlet world tour set out on its remarkable journey on 23 April 2014, the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. Its company of travelling players has performed in all corners of the world – in theatres, temples and public squares – and in October to a Syrian audience in the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan. This unparalleled journey has been the first foreign company in 23 years to present a full play in Somaliland, drawn crowds of 3,000 for one show in Sudan, performed in the United Nations Headquarters in New York, and has been granted UNESCO patronage for the tour’s engagement with local communities and promotion of cultural education.
Performances of Hamlet will be as follows:
Saturday 23 April: 2.00pm and 7.30pm Sunday 24 April: 12.00pm and 5.00pm
Priority
Booking opens for Friends & Patrons of Shakespeare’s Globe on 23 November, with Public Booking opening on 30 November. To become a Friend or Patron of Shakespeare’s Globe, click here.
So far Hamlet has been performed in over 135 countries,
to more than 100,000 people and travelled over 100,000 miles. The
tour was granted UNESCO patronage for its engagement with local
communities and its promotion of cultural education.
Our journey has taken us across northern Europe, North, Central
and South America, we then steered East to travel across Africa before making
our way to Australasia, the Pacific and Asia. We strive to offer the
performance free of charge for local audiences where possible.
·
In Somaliland, our Hamlet Company became the first foreign
company to stage a full play in 23 years
·
In Sudan, Hamlet was
performed outdoors to a similar audience of 3000 at the National Theatre in
Khartoum.
·
In Mexico, Hamlet was performed for 3000 people in front of
Yucatán Cathedral, the oldest cathedral on mainland America, built the year
before Shakespeare wrote Hamlet.
Each country provides unique experiences and fresh challenges.
Transporting our set from place to place, setting up in completely different
venues as quickly as possible, and ensuring that we spread the word wide enough
about the production that as many people as possible can see our play in that
region are just some of the daily tests that we face.
Without your support, we
wouldn’t have been able to get to as many countries and do as many free
performances. With just over six months to go, and still some of the most
challenging countries to reach (including parts of Africa we haven’t been able
to travel to before because of the Ebola endemic) we need your help more than
ever.
Sponsoring a mile from as
little as £5 will continue to help us reach even more audiences across the
world.
To mark our exciting milestones we decided to have a competition with a variety of prizes.
In order to enter, you must be following our blog, and then reblog this post with the answer to the question: When will Hamlet finally come home?
The answer (date-month-year) can be found on the Hamlet main website.
The competition will run from today, Friday 9 October 2015 until it closes on Monday 19 October at 12:00 GMT (that’s noon). There will be a total of 5 winners - 1 in each category below - chosen at a random from the correct responses. You must have your ask open if you enter the competition, so that we can contact you if you win, and you must respond within 24 hours or the prize will be redrawn. Prizes will be allocated on first-drawn basis: the first person drawn will be able choose their prize from all 5, the second from the 4 left over and so on. We will cover the postage costs.
Prizes:
1. A Hamlet poster of your choice, see the lovely examples we have:
2. A miniature Hamlet text in dark blue, signed by members of the cast:
3. A Folio copy of the Hamlet text, signed by members of the cast:
4. Two Globe DVDs: Much Ado About Nothing and Doctor Faustus
5. A single item of your choice from the Globe Shop.
We have gone over one thousand followers this weekend. Thank you to everyone for your support and interest in our tour. You have helped us reach some incredible places and travel over 200,000 km.
Over the next few days, we’ll share some more incredible stuff, there will be a thank you from our cast and we’ll be holding a little competition for all of you. Things to be won will include Hamlet posters from different countries, Globe DVDs and things from the Globe Shop.
Hooray and we can’t wait for the next milestone for Hamlet!
A terrific Saturday evening at the Jerudong International School’s Arts Centre watching the Globe Theatre company from London perform William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
