The Pop-Up Globe

Overview

After spreading The Bard's word across the ditch this winter, the Pop-up Globe will return to Auckland for its third season, with more battles and blood, more elaborate sets and costumes, better special effects and five new shows.

From 7 December, the full-scale replica of the second Globe Theatre will come back to life at Shakespeare Gardens at Ellerslie Racecourse — a location which attracted 100,000 playgoers earlier in the year.

The 2017-18 season will welcome five new productions, beginning with Shakespeare's take on love and obsession, A Midsummer Night's Dream. Directed by Pop-up Globe artistic director and founder Dr Miles Gregory, the comedic masterpiece will feature actors from the Kings Company.

Opening on 11 January is the tragedy Julius Caesar by Pembroke's Company — a new company of 11 women and two men performing a gender-reversed version. Dark comedy The Merchant of Venice will be performed in repertory by the Kings Company, while great Shakesperan tragedy Macbeth and the farce, The Comedy of Errors, will round out the festival.

For those who missed out on the last two seasons, the three-storey building seats 900 theatregoers over three tiers and includes standing room in the 'yard' to recreate the experience of a night out at the 16th century theatre. It will again feature all the spectacular theatrical trickery of the Jacobean era, including cannons, flaming arrows, litres of fake blood and beautiful period costume pieces specially constructed by the in-house wardrobe department. Additional features this year include a new garden setting complete with twinkling lights and a new bar.