Dry January

shakespeare-steps-blog

Happy New Year. Here at Cafe HQ much like the North of England and much of Scotland we are very keen on January being a dry month, but for a much more frivolous reason.

In 2012 we used bio-degradable paint to make three outdoor editions of The Steps Series – painting footsteps, hand prints and speech bubbles on pavements and paths to set out instructions for re-enacting miniature dramatic scenes. Indoors using vinyl the installation is a breeze, outdoors with paint it’s not, it’s a pain. In fact it is such a pain that we secretly agreed that we’d spare ourselves the grief and stick to indoor versions, but that was before…

… The Royal Shakespeare Company rocked up and asked if we’d be interested in doing a version of Midsummer Night’s Dream for mid-summer 2016.

Would we be interested? Yes.
Even though it’s outdoors? Well, it would be midsummer wouldn’t it.

So of course we said yes and within a a fortnight the RSC are back on the phone, they’ve discussed the project with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Shakespeare Schoolroom & Guildhall and they’re keen on the idea, how about a version that runs through the centre of Stratford throughout the year?

Of course that’s very exciting prospect, so of course we said yes. We’ve been working away at the preparations since September and we’re pretty much prepared, most of the many things that need signing off have been signed off. Painting is due to start on Wednesday. All that we need now is the rain to stop.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *