After announcing earlier this winter that Cymbeline in the Anthropocene would be joined by Dr. Mónica Maffía's Setebos company in Argentina, we are now delighted to announce another new collaborator: please join us in welcoming Western Summer Shakespeare of London, Ontario, Canada, who join us under the leadership of Dr. Joanna Devereux, a professor at the University of Western Ontario.

To introduce this new collaboration, Dr. Devereux prepared a brief history of Western Summer Shakespeare:

"The first Western Summer Shakespeare production, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, opened on August 4, 1981. It was performed in the old business school garden, with a cast and crew of students and alumni, and directed by a professional director. Since that time, the tradition has continued at Western every summer, featuring casts and directors comprising students—both graduate and undergraduate—as well as members of the wider London community.

"The ground on which these outdoor shows have been staged has shifted many times over the years, using various garden-like spaces both on and off campus. Each year, as our name suggests, we present a Shakespeare play, although in 2018 we did step off the usual path and produced Milton’s Samson Agonistes. Most often, we choose a comedy, such as the Dream, As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, The Comedy of Errors, The Merchant of Venice, Twelfth Night, or The Taming of the Shrew, though we have also performed tragedies such as Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, Richard III, Julius Caesar, and Antony and Cleopatra. Finally, we have produced two of the late Romances—The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest—at least twice. However, this will be our first year putting on Cymbeline, and we are delighted to be a part of this exciting project."

Western Summer Shakespeare currently has a call open for prospective directors of their upcoming Cymbeline production, closing March 31st. If you or a colleague are a theatre director in Southern Ontario interested in participating in this project, follow the link in this text to learn more!

With the addition of Western Summer Shakespeare, Cymbeline in the Anthropocene now includes nine collaborating theatres across the globe, including seven countries, diverse performance ecosystems, and speakers of at least four languages. As the first performances draw closer--April 21-24 in Melbourne, Australia, and April 22 in Merced, California!--we are excited to foster such a richness of ecodramaturgical creations.