RIFT: Shakespeare in Shoreditch Festival 2015

After sellout success at 2014's Shakespeare in Shoreditch, RIFT return with another cutting-edge, contemporary take on the bard for a ten day festival of theatre, talks, workshops and screenings. Having originally been programmed for October 2015, the theatre festival will move to April 2016, to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. Francesca Duncan, Shakespeare in Shoreditch producer says that the rescheduled festival will be "bigger and bolder than we have previously anticipated".
Shakespeare's stormy seas and tempestuous themes provide the inspiration for four new site-specific plays and a programme of talks and screenings. 
To mark the often overlooked Shakespearean cultural heritage in Shoreditch, RIFT have created a new hub space in the heart of East London, constructed from wrought iron and made suitably stormy with hurricane lamps and candlelight. This specially-built space will stage four premieres by up-and-coming creatives.
David Watson's The H-Word is about the newest and most achingly cool hangout in town. Grey Man by Lulu Raczka explores story-telling either side of a bedroom wall. Pelican Daughters by Amy Rosenthal relocates King Lear to East London, with an inverted, updated take on sibling rivalry. And Charlene James' This is Art plays on the themes of Othello with an expiration of jealousy set in Hoxton's Desdemona Gallery.
Alongside the plays there's also talks, workshops and a pop-up cinema showing film adaptations of Shakespeare, including Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet and the hit children's film Gnomeo and Juliet. 
Book now for a fresh take on classic drama and an insight into the history of Shakespeare beyond Bankside and Stratford-Upon-Avon.