Tickets went on sale today (Wednesday, April 3) for Bard on the Beach theatre shows at Vanier Park in Vancouver.
This is the Shakespeare festival’s 30th-anniversary season.
The productions this year include a salute to an all-time favourite Bard production, the stage adaptation of an Oscar-winning romantic comedy, a cross-cultural story set in India and a rarely-staged political drama.
First up is a staging of The Taming of the Shrew, on the BMO Mainstage from June 5 to Sept. 21, followed by Shakespeare in Love (opening June 12).
The Howard Family Stage offers the stagings of All’s Well That Ends Well, set in 1940s India at the time leading up to Indian independence, and Coriolanus, billed as “a riveting political drama filled with resonance for our time.”
The season is designed “to delight (spectators) who have been with us since Bard on the Beach first began in 1990, while also enticing new visitors to our festival,” Christopher Gaze, artistic director, said in a release.
“Lois Anderson, who directed last year’s hit production of Lysistrata, brings us a feminist-forward interpretation of our hilarious 2007 spaghetti-Western Shrew. Also on the BMO Mainstage, we’re extending our reach beyond Shakespeare’s canon with the playful romantic adventure, Shakespeare in Love, directed by Daryl Cloran,” who brought As You Like It to the stage last season.
On the Howard Family Stage, Johnna Wright and Rohit Chokhani co-direct All’s Well That Ends Well, and South Surrey-raised Dean Paul Gibson, the festival’s associate director, directs Coriolanus.
Special events this summer include Exploring Shakespeare (“Simon Fraser University’s Paul Budra leads lively explorations of the season’s four plays”), VSO at Bard: From Venice to Vienna (June 24), a “Kate: Victim or Victor?” forum (Aug. 26), Bard-B-Q & Fireworks events, Operas & Arias: Verdi and More! (Aug. 26 and Sept. 2), Family Days, Talkback Tuesdays, Wine Wednesdays, VocalEye performances for those with vision loss, and more.
Play ticket prices start at $26, including all fees and taxes, with group and multi-play packages available. For details, visit bardonthebeach.org or call 604-739-0559.
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