Gather in the Globe Theatre for an ultra-live experiment, as we recreate Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream for one night only.

In Shakespeare’s times, often actors had no access to the whole play script. Instead, they were given their lines on a scroll or a roll of paper (literally their role), with a few words that would be their cue: hence cue-script. They also didn’t have the weeks of rehearsal that we are used to now. For the most part, each actor would go away, learn their lines, learn their cues, and then turn up at the theatre ready to go.

Just the play, the players, and the most important character of all: you, the audience.

Now, 400 years later, we will attempt to do the same. Directed by Blanche McIntyre (Twelfth Night: For One Night Only, 2023; Measure for Measure, 2021), a host of familiar faces are primed to learn their lines, familiarise their cues and step courageously into the unknown on the stage of our glorious wooden ‘O’. All you need to do is join us for a night that promises to be spontaneous, revelatory, and celebratory!

‘When my cue comes, call me…’

Act IV, scene 1