Current Issue #488

2014 Adelaide Festival First Announcement

2014 Adelaide Festival First Announcement

The first two big ticket 2014 Adelaide Festival shows have been announced; a continuous six-hour blend of Shakespeare and avant-garde musician John Zorn.

The first two big ticket 2014 Adelaide Festival shows have been announced; a continuous six-hour blend of three Shakespeare plays and avant-garde musician John Zorn.

The full program will be announced on Tuesday, October 29 but Adelaide Festival Artistic Director David Sefton has announced the first two shows of next year’s festival, which are more experimental than 2013’s preview announcements of One Man, Two Guvnors and Kronos Quartet with Laurie Anderson. The first show, Roman Tragedies, is a Dutch theatre production from Toneelgroep Amsterdam, which fuses three Shakespeare plays (Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, Antony & Cleopatra) into one continuous six-hour performance in a contemporary setting. Roman Tragedies will be performed on the festival’s opening weekend at the Festival Centre from Friday, February 28 to Sunday, March 2. Sefton labels Roman Tragedies as “one of the best theatre shows of the last decade”. “[It’s] an immersive contemporary retelling of Shakespeare for the 24-hour news generation,” he explains in a press release. “It is epic, on a scale not seen at the festival since The Mahabharata in the quarry. People who see Roman Tragedies will remember it as an Adelaide Festival highlight for years to come.” Roman Tragedies has no fixed intermission and allows audience members to move around the theatre space and even the stage with refreshments available on stage throughout the six-hour performance. Sefton’s other announcement for his second festival is that of underground jazz and experimental legend John Zorn (Naked City, Masada, Painkiller) who will make his Australian debut at the festival. Zorn will be joined by more than 40 collaborators including Mike Patton (Faith No More, Tomahawk and Mr Bungle), Milford Graves and Bill Laswell for six concerts, with four of the performances having a run time of more than three hours. Says Sefton: “I am thrilled and proud that Adelaide Festival will present John Zorn in Australia for the first, and most likely the only time ever. The epic scale of these concerts is a testament to the range and diversity of Zorn’s music. There really is no one else like him and this is Australia’s chance to finally see him live.” Roman Tragedies tickets go on sale from 7pm, Tuesday, September 3. It will be performed at the 
Festival Theatre on Feb 28, Mar 1, Mar 2. Unreserved seating: $50 to $159 Zorn in Oz tickets go on sale from Tuesday, October 29: Shows: 
Masada Marathon | Cobra | Essential Cinema | Zorn, Graves, Laswell | Classical Marathon | Zorn @ 60. Festival Theatre from Mar 11 to Mar 14. Tickets $35 to $129 adelaidefestival.com.au

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