Parrabbola and the partners from across the project are coming to Gdansk to make a community play, the final artistic cooperation in the European Collaborative project – Shaking the Walls organized by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.
Shaking the Walls explores the walls and barriers, visible and invisible across our societies. The project partners come from Ireland, Iceland, Czech Republic, Poland and the UK, and will all meet within this community performance.
Every community play or event is crafted to that community, in the UK, Europe or internationally, because every community is different. Parrabbola spans the generations with its community theatre work.

Authoritarianism, Borders, Censorship, Domestic violence, Equality.
The barriers and walls that divide us are everywhere; some you can see and some you can’t.
In this Parrabbola project, co-created with all of the Shaking the Walls partners and with community participants from Gdansk, we’re going to do some shaking and some breaking down of those barriers.
If Shakespeare wrote about and exposed all these issues – why are we still talking about them? Haven’t we learnt anything? Weren’t we listening?
Will you listen when we talk about them now? And will you shake the walls?

The performance will combine references to all the partner projects, with Shakespeare scenes and extracts, and some other new writing that has been commissioned from around the world.

The Call for Participants is now open. You can be a part of this performance – we need people from the Gdansk community who would like to participate in this production. No experience is necessary, just a willingness and enthusiasm to be part of the production – speaking, acting, singing, and dancing. It’s always great fun, and hard work, and we will make great things together!
Because of the current virus situation, we can’t hold our usual casting days, so we’ll work on zoom to meet all of you at a couple of sessions in October. But at this stage, you should just SIGN UP. Come and be part of it!

We closely monitor pandemic situation and will act accordingly to the restrictions and available options – in case live performance is not possible we will go online and make the best we can with available tools.

The production will be presented in the programme of 24. Gdansk Shakespeare Festival and is planned to be presented on 21, 22, 23 November 2020.

Artistic team involved in the development of the production:
UK Parrabbola: Philip Parr (Director), David Monteith (Performer), Brian D Hanlon (Designer), Andra Chelcea (Producer),
UK York: Sonia DiLorenzo, Benedict Turvill (Performer)
Ireland: Maggie Hannon (Performer)
Czech Republic: Jana Ryslava (Performer and Movement Director)
Iceland: Gudmundur Ingi Thorvaldsson (Perfomer, Composer, Musical Director)
Poland: Pawel Sudara (film maker) Filip Gesse (Associate Designer)

ShakespeareOFF 2020 Competition Finalists were selected!

The Secection Board of the ShakespeareOFF 2020 Competition – Jerzy Limon (Artistic Director of Gdansk Shakespeare Festival), Katarzyna Knychalska (ShakespeareOFF Curator 2020) and Joanna Śnieżko-Misterek (Festival Coordinator) – has selected 10 of the 22 projects submitted for presentations at ShakespeareOFF strand which is a part of 24th Gdańsk Shakepseare Festival (on 20-28th November 2020). The selected presentations will compete for the ShakespeareOFF awards.

The following presentations have been selected:

„Aktorzy przyjechali”  – Wiesław Cichy i Marek Kocot, Wrocław, Poland

„Burza”  – Teatr Makata, Warszawa, Poland

„I come to you River. Ophelia fractured” – Studio Kokyu, Wrocław, Poland

„Mobbing Dick (Shakespeare’s Lovers)” – Caroline Pagani, Italy

„Nazwisko” – Prokopiuk&Kraińska, Bytom, Poland

„OTELLO  TONIGHT!” Teatr Przedmieście, Rzeszów, Poland

„OtHello” Parrabbola, Great Britain

„Po Otellu” Teatr Strefa Otwarta (Anna Rakowska i Piotr Misztela), Wrocław, Poland

„stormy protest song” – Monster Hurricane Wihajster (Monika i Hubert Wińczyk), Poznań, Poland

„TEFILIN” – Bartłomiej Gąsior, Warszawa, Poland

The abovementioned presentations will be assessed by the ShakespeareOFF Competiton Jury comprised of: Anda Rottenberg, Piotr Cieplak, Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk, appointed by Jerzy Limon, the Director of Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre.

There will be 13 shows altogether presented in ShakespeareOFF strand selected in two competitions: The ShakespeareOFF Competition (10 shows mentioned above) and 3 shows selected in the support of artistic productions competition. The latter are not assessed by the Jury.

ShakespeareOFF is a festival strand of fringe presentations since 2016 run as a competition. In the last two years it has also been a part of “Shaking the Walls“ project co-financed by Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.