Child actors and opera lined up for Globe’s candlelit new theatre

 
(AY83455893) LONDON, ENGLAND - APRIL 15: (EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE) Kerry Ingram from Matilda The Musical performs onstage at the 2012 Olivier Awards at The Royal Opera House on April 15, 2012 in London, England. (Photo by Tim Whitby/Getty Images
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22 April 2013

The Globe is to form a company of child actors and collaborate with the Royal Opera House in projects at its new £7.5 million indoor theatre, it was announced today.

The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will be candlelit and will recreate the atmosphere of the first indoor theatres. It opens in January with John Webster’s macabre classic, The Duchess Of Malfi.

It will break new ground for the Globe, with the first performance in nearly 50 years of 1644 opera L’Ormindo, by Francesco Cavalli, a comedy about a sex-starved young queen and her would-be lovers.

Performers aged 12 to 16 will then present John Marston’s The Malcontent, reviving the practice of using companies of child actors. The Young Players Company will be formed after a countrywide search for talent later this year.

Globe artistic director Dominic Dromgoole said both projects will further explore the performance practices of Shakespeare’s time and the work of his fellow artists. The candlelit intimacy of the playhouse, named after the Globe’s founder, would shed new light on works such as the dark and violent Duchess of Malfi, and make it “an ideal place” to explore early opera and to train young people in classical theatre.

He added: “We want to create a constant sense of surprise and excitement. We hope the playhouse will afford as many insights and prove as theatrically rejuvenating as the Globe has proved over the last 16 years.” The new space will be open all year round, unlike the main, outdoor stage.

L’Ormindo will be directed by Kasper Holten, the Royal Opera House’s director of opera.

The venue will also host a production of The Knight Of The Burning Pestle, Francis Beaumont’s 1607 satire on chivalric romances. Harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock gives a concert inspired by the time eight-year-old Mozart spent in London.

Meanwhile, Eileen Atkins takes on the mantle of 19th-century Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry in a one-woman show.

Although an entire company of children will be novel, child stars are already boosting West End audiences in shows such as Matilda, where four little girls share the title role, and Billy Elliot, played by scores of boys.

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