Tickets are now on sale for the opening season at the £30m Shakespeare North Playhouse.
Priority booking is live for friends and supporters of the venue, while general booking opens on May 4 (2pm) .
Shakespeare North Playhouse, in Prescot, is home to the only 17th Century-style, timber-framed theatre outside London. The 470-seat main auditorium is surrounded by a modern building that also houses a fully-accessible outdoor performance garden, exhibition gallery, 60-seat studio theatre, learning centre, exhibition and events spaces and a cafe and bar, with an outdoor piazza.
After a celebratory opening weekend in July (15-17), there will be a programme of drama and comedy, some with a Shakespearean theme, before the theatre’s own production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream (September 22-October 22) a comedy some believe was first performed at the wedding of the 6th Earl of Derby, who lived at nearby Knowsley Hall. This will be directed by Oldham-born and internationally-renowned director Matthew Dunster, who is currently directing on Broadway.
The new theatre's Christmas show has also been chosen. It will be A Christmas Carol, opening on November 25 until January 7.
::There’s no evidence that Shakespeare ever visited the area, but Prescot is believed to have been the site of the only purpose-built Elizabethan theatre outside London, erected in 1593. No plans of the original have survived, so the new venue - first proposed 15 years ago - is a replica of the Cockpit-in-Court, designed for Charles I by architect Inigo Jones at Whitehall Palace in 1629.
