Shakespeare By the Sea is announcing its 32nd Summer Season today and it is a big one.
The Family Show will be the 20th Anniversary Production of Robin Hood, The Legendary Musical Comedy written by Jeremy Hutton, William Foley, Jesse MacLean, Kevin MacPherson, and Kate Smith back in 2005. It will be directed by Jesse MacLean, with Musical Direction by Shanoa Phillips and Choreographed by Jade Douris-O’Hara. This show was voted The Coast’s Best Theatre Production by audiences in 2011, the last time the show was revived, and also again in 2012. It will be at the Cambridge Battery Theatre Space July 5th until August 30th, 2025.
The Company is bringing back its tradition of moving audience members through Point Pleasant Park with As You Like It: The Walkabout Experience, directed by Drew Douris-O’Hara, from July 25-August 29th, an immersive experience where Shakespeare’s magic will greet audience members around every bend within the park. This production features an original score by Eliza Rhinelander, which will be performed live by beloved Dartmouthian musician Ian Sherwood.
“We are really excited about this season,” says Artistic Director Jesse MacLean, “because we’re attempting to return to a way of making theatre that we haven’t done in a long time… we’re going to do a site-specific show- a Walkabout Shakespeare. It’s something we haven’t done since 2004. Drew and I’s first season was [in] 2003 where we did the Martello Tower Hamlet, and that was a show that travelled all around the park. So those shows were extremely ambitious. The next year, 2004, we did Richard III. We were going to do it in the park as well, but ten days before the show opened a piece of the Martello Tower fell off as they were doing some restoration work on it, so we lost access to that part of the venue, so they graciously offered us the Halifax Citadel, and we scrambled our butts off to move the show from the park to the Citadel. We had 22 people in the cast. We had 30 volunteers. It was bonkers. Drew and I were both really highly affected by those early experiences with the company.” MacLean and Associate Artistic Director Drew Douris-O’Hara mention that they still often have audience members who will reminisce fondly about the shows prior to their first season with the company in 2003, saying, for example, that King Lear at the Citadel in 1999 or Richard III at the Dingle Tower were ‘the best show they ever saw.’ “I think those Martello Tower shows the company did in its first ten years really put the company on the map,” says MacLean, “and are partially responsible for Shakespeare By the Sea’s continued success.” “[The more immersive Shakespeare experiences] have been a goal for us to get to really for ten years,” says Drew.
“We never really wanted to stop doing it,” says MacLean, “they’re very challenging to create, obviously, with all the moving parts of moving not only actors but audiences… and keeping that experience accessible for people.” MacLean stresses that As You Like It won’t be as long as the Walkabout Shows were in the past, saying that it’s more accessible for folks if the length of the performance is closer to what it would be at the Cambridge Battery venue, and also if the action is contained within a smaller area of the park. “The 2025 version of those early shows [is done] with a little more care, I think, paid towards the artists and the audiences,” says MacLean.
To make the walking aspects of As Your Like It more practical the audience for just those shows will be capped at 200 people. “It’s exciting to be able to create theatre in a bit more of an intimate way than we typically are able to,” Drew says, citing the fact that the Cambridge Battery space where Robin Hood will play can accommodate upwards of 700 people. With that in mind Drew cautions folks to book for As You Like It early because they will actually have to turn people away, “which hasn’t typically been true,” Studio Director and Resident Artist Jade Douris-O’Hara adds. Jade says that as a more recent addition to the company she has been hearing the lore of these original immersive productions for the past nine years, which is also true of many of the company’s audience members.
As You Like It is “a beautiful, whimsical, magical, and musical show,” says Drew. “It’s Shakespeare’s most musical comedy that has music woven in and all throughout, which presents a really interesting and captivating challenge for any new production… this production has all original music created by Eliza Rhinelander, who did music for last’s year’s Twelfth Night, and who just released her own solo album called The Precipice this year to great acclaim. She is collaborating with Ian Sherwood, who is going to be playing the Banished Duke in the Forest, so Eliza’s score is going to be primarily sung and played by Ian Sherwood, which is absolutely thrilling for us.”
“As You Like It follows Rosalind, who is Shakespeare’s greatest heroine” says Drew; “she is a young daughter of a duke who is banished. She flees the court of France to find her banished father, and when she makes it to the Forest of Arden, she finds out a lot about herself and about love. It’s full of lots of clowns and hijinks and mistaken identity and romance and…” “Tap dancing,” Jade chimes in. “Maybe some tap dancing,” Drew agrees. “It’s going to be a real party in the forest.”
To keep As You Like It as accessible as possible, for each performance there will be six spaces available on the Shakespeare By the Sea golf cart, which will have to be reserved in advance. There will be someone at the performance to drive these six from location to location, which is an extension of the golf cart service that Shakespeare By the Sea already provides to help folks in and out of the park. Each of the site-specific locations are on wide even paths, so if you are able to walk down the path to the Cambridge Battery, the Walkabout will be a similar experience to that. There will also be matinee performances of both As You Like It and Robin Hood at the Halifax Central Library for anyone for whom an indoor afternoon performance is more convenient.
The final show of the season, on August 31st, is one of the company’s wildly popular Unrehearsed Series, this year they will be tackling Romeo and Juliet. As the title suggests this is a one night only event where the company will perform Romeo and Juliet having had zero rehearsal. Last year’s Unrehearsed MacBeth saw over 700 people come in the rain. “These season closing events have become real ‘have to be there’ events for our audience,” says Drew, “people show up an hour and a half early to line up and make sure they get the best seat. It’s really unlike anything else that happens in the city.” At the moment you can only buy tickets to the Unrehearsed Romeo and Juliet through the company’s season passes, which are almost sold out already, but you can also come the day of the show and buy Pay What You Can Tickets at the door.
The By The Sea Series, special events in the park presented by Shakespeare By the Sea, include Sketch at the Park on July 28th, hosted by Vanessa Allen and Jim Temple, and featuring a lineup of Halifax’s best Sketch Comedy groups, Halifax Fringe, which will have performances in Point Pleasant Park between September 1st and 7th, and in August Metu’na’q, a Mi’kmaw adaptation of The Tempest created by the Sipu Tricksters of Sipekne’katik First Nation in collaboration with Zuppa Theatre, will have its Haligonian premiere at the park. Showtimes TBA.
Jade Douris-O’Hara also announces the Studio Season today: the Teen Shakespeare Company is going to be doing Antony and Cleopatra, and the Musical Theatre Company is doing Bad Hats Theatre’s production of Peter Pan.
Jade mentions that all theatres are asking themselves these days, “what can theatre do that Netflix and HBO can’t” and many folks are coming back to creating these more immersive experiences. “Get out of your house, go for a walk in the park, literally, it’s probably one of the best things you can do for your mental health and your physical health,” adds MacLean. “and your sense of connection to your community,” adds Jade.
The 2025 Shakespeare By the Sea Company will include the following performers: Matt Lacas (Robin Hood), Siya Ajay, Zach Colangelo, Jade Douris-O’Hara (Prince John), Chris George, Patrick Jeffrey, Melanie Leon (Rosalind), Rachel Lloyd, Seb Reade, and Ian Sherwood.
Happy Birthday William Shakespeare!
