ABOUT THE PRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION FROM LUCY CUTHBERTSON, DIRECTOR
Hello. We are so excited to welcome you to Shakespeare’s Globe and our production of Macbeth. It’s our 19th year of Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank, a very special project for the Globe because it gives us the opportunity to create a show specifically for young people. I know many of you are studying Macbeth at school and I hope that seeing a performance really brings the play alive for you. If this is your first time at the Globe, we plan to give you an action-packed theatre experience you will never forget.
A survey by The Sutton Trust and NFER in 2023 found that due to budget pressures, 50% of schools were cutting trips – more than double the figure in 2022 – and for schools with disadvantaged student intakes this figure was even higher, at 68%. Students from low-income families are less likely to have such experiences outside of those provided by school. The support from Deutsche Bank enables the Globe to give more than 26,000 free tickets to state school students from London and Birmingham during March, plus numerous free workshops and teacher training sessions, all to enhance engagement and understanding of the play. We know the best way to encounter Shakespeare is through a live performance.
This year, we launched a national student competition to rewrite the Porter’s speech. Who might the Porter invite into Hell in 2025? You’ll hear the winning entry in our production, and you can see more information here.
Our huge thanks and ongoing gratitude to Deutsche Bank and their Corporate Social Responsibility team, especially Amy Harris and Rachel Plummer. Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank is truly a whole Globe effort, with every department involved, but particular thanks go to our very talented company, colleagues in the Theatre department and the brilliant Learning and Education production teams.
The inspiration for this production originated simply from watching the news and thinking about how Shakespeare’s story of greed, tyranny and a violent man with power sadly never goes out of fashion. We must try to work towards a future where, in generations to come, Macbeth feels truly old-fashioned.
Lucy Cuthbertson
Director of Education (Learning) at Shakespeare’s Globe and Director of Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank: Macbeth
March 2025
INTRODUCTION FROM DEUTSCHE BANK
Welcome to Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank.
Since 2007, this transformative education partnership with Shakespeare’s Globe has provided over 280,000 students with free or subsidised tickets to see one of Shakespeare’s plays as it was intended to be experienced.
The programme sits at the heart of our global Corporate Social Responsibility education strategy, which is dedicated to helping young people to develop skills and improve access to education and employment opportunities. With every production, our partnership aims to deepen students’ understanding of a core Shakespeare text. You will experience Macbeth’s prominent themes of power, tragedy, violence and gender depicted through modern, military action scenes, whilst blurring the lines between the natural and the supernatural. And for the first time this year, students have explored their personal interpretation of a key scene by rewriting the iconic Porter’s speech. This opportunity has offered participants the power to take an old, outdated yet comedic part of the text, and transform it with their own modern interpretation of the scene – something I am really looking forward to hearing at our Deutsche Bank performance.
With access to the Arts now a rare opportunity for many students across the UK, we are proud our collaboration with the Globe continues to offer opportunities and remove barriers, enabling thousands of young people each year an experience that they otherwise may not have. Alongside schools receiving free tickets to contemporary productions, teachers attend workshops to invigorate how Shakespeare is taught in the classroom, and an exciting online platform provides interactive learning resources for students, families and teachers.
Thank you to the Shakespeare’s Globe team for their continued dedication to the development of our programme, especially Lucy Cuthbertson as this year’s Director, and Rebecca Greenbank and Katie Baker-Neame behind the scenes. I would also like to thank my Deutsche Bank colleagues, their friends and families for buying over 15,000 tickets for exclusive performances throughout the partnership. Your support enables us to offer even more free tickets to state secondary school students – thank you.
On behalf of Deutsche Bank, we hope you enjoy the show!
Vathany Vijayaratna
Chief Executive Officer, UK and Ireland
Deutsche Bank
THE IMPACT OF PLAYING SHAKESPEARE WITH DEUTSCHE BANK
Number of schools reached in each London borough since the start of the project:
