The festival was founded on the impulse of President Václav Havel, who at the beginning of the 1990’s appealed to artists to attract the widest possible public to Prague Castle. One of the events that originated at that time is the Summer Shakespeare Festival, which was first organized in 1994 and is held at the Supreme Burgrave’s House.
The festival has gradually become more important and has spread from Prague Castle to Brno and Bratislava Castle. Most recently the event has been joined by Silesia-Ostrava Castle and by Košice. Presently, there are two venues in Prague. Besides the traditional stage at the Supreme Burgrave’s House, the event will also be held in the courtyard of Lichtenstein Palace, Malostranské Square 13.
The popularity of the festival is reflected in the enormous interest in tickets, recorded turnouts often as high as 87 000 in one season and the overall quality of the event, which is praised by the media and favourable reviews. During the summer, over 140 performances are played and the open-air auditoriums with the capacity from 600-1 000 seats and the tickets are almost always sold out. Every year, the festival presents new productions of some of Shakespeare’s plays.
This great cultural event is simply not to be missed.
Despite its established fame and its clearly defined repertoire, Shakespeare Festival will always try to surprise and attract spectators.
Repertoire
Summer Shakespeare Festival 2009 will be held from the 25th of June to the 3rd of September.
The most expected item on programme is the comedy The Merry Wives of Windsor directed by Jiří Menzel and translated by Martin Hilský. The role of Sir John Falstaff will be interpreted by Bolek Polívka and Mistress Page by Simona Stašová.
Macbeth will also see a Czech premiere with Veronika Freimanová as Lady Macbeth and Lady Macduff and Antony and Cleopatra with great Slovakian actors.
The programme will also feature productions that were successfully presented at previous festivals: The Tempest, As You Like It, The Midsummer Night’s dream and The Comedy of Errors, which will again be presented in two different mise-en-scenes. In August, there will also be two productions in English presented by the renownd British Shakespeare Company at Prague Castle.
Programme and tickets
Complete programme can be found at: web.
Tickets for The Merry Wives of Windsor are at presently sold out. ( www.ticketportal.cz states “temporarily sold out, try again later“.)
The ticket office at the Supreme Burgrave’s House will be open from the 25th of June where it will be possible to book any remaining tickets, which are so far not on offer (these will also be available at Ticketportal).
The ticket office will be open on the day of the performance from 3 to 9 p.m., when the performance is booked, the ticket office will only be open from 3 to 6.30 p.m.
Tickets for other plays are still available.
Also first tickets for the two exclusive performances of The Midsummer Night’s Dream – Prague Philharmonia project are already on sale. This project will open a new scene at Prague Castle on the 30th and 31st of August. Tickets available from Ticketportal.
Source: Festival organizers
