Tag Archives: summer Shakespeare

Troy O’Donnell has a history with the Freewill Shakespeare Festival, and this year’s As You Like It

Posted on June 26, 2025 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The play that opens Friday in a park overlooking the river valley is all about finding yourself on an excursion to the great outdoors, “the green world.” No wonder the Freewill Shakespeare Festival, which has gone … Continue reading →

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Our revels now have started: Nadien Chu stars in Freewill Shakespeare’s The Tempest, in an outdoor hockey rink near you

Posted on June 17, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The play that launches the 35th annual Freewill Shakespeare Festival this week — destined for four outdoor community league hockey rinks — is full of strange transformations. The Tempest, one of Shakespeare’s late-period “romances,” begins with the … Continue reading →

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On the road again: the Freewill Shakespeare Festival takes The Tempest to community league hockey rinks this summer

Posted on May 13, 2024 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,/ Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not….” The Tempest, Act III, scene 2 The Freewill Shakespeare Festival has taken its game resident playwright on … Continue reading →

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You’ve got the music in you: a joyful new Twelfth Night at Freewill Shakespeare Festival

Posted on August 12, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca “O spirit of love! How quick and fresh art thou,” declares a love-struck Duke, glancing heavenward in the early moments of Twelfth Night, the first of the two alternating plays (along with Romeo and Juliet) in … Continue reading →

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The Freewill Shakespeare Festival’s new home for the summer: a vintage spiegeltent at Edmonton EXPO Centre

Posted on April 24, 2023 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca For their resident playwright, it’s the big 4-5-9. For the Freewill Shakespeare Festival, it’s season 34, and full of mid-play dramatic developments. Evicted from their home stage by the lunatic City plan of a three-YEAR closure … Continue reading →

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Sex in the city, hypocrite puritans, corrupt politicians … who’s ever heard of that? Measure For Measure in the park

Posted on June 16, 2022 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca The opening image of Nancy McAlear’s production of Measure For Measure, the Freewill Shakespeare Festival’s companion piece to A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Hawrelak Park this summer, is a male pole dancer in a cage. It’s … Continue reading →

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Backyard Bard, live and on demand: the Freewill Shakespeare Festival brings the plays to you

Posted on June 29, 2021 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca You can have a fling with Shakespeare this summer. And, hey, he’ll come to your place to hang out. As they announced on Will’s 457th birthday April 23, the Freewill Shakespeare Festival has had to take … Continue reading →

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Happy 4-5-7 Will! With news from the Freewill Shakespeare Festival

Posted on April 23, 2021 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca But soft! We bring you birthday news. The playwright-in-residence at the Freewill Shakespeare Festival celebrates his big 4-5-7 today with with alternate plans for a second pandemic summer. Where there’s a Will there’s a way. “So, … Continue reading →

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The world’s a zany, baffling place: The Comedy of Errors in the park

Posted on June 22, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca At a crucial mistaken-identity moment in The Comedy of Errors — a transaction-gone-askew involving a goldsmith, a chain, and a wayward husband arranging delivery on pricey bling for someone not his wife — a magpie perched … Continue reading →

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Taking comedy and tragedy to the park: the Freewill Shakespeare Festival returns

Posted on June 21, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca There’s a vast expanse of theatrical distance between the two shows you’ll see alternating in the outdoor Shakespeare festival that opens tonight in the river valley. Tonight’s show is a comedy, and a farcical one at that; … Continue reading →

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