Pop-up Globe was a New Zealand theatre production company, based in Auckland, New Zealand. It produced Jacobean theatre, particularly the works of Shakespeare, in specially-built temporary replicas of the second Globe, the theatre Shakespeare and his company built and used. The company's theatre was the world's first full-scale reconstruction of the Second Globe Theatre (1614–44).
Between 2015 and 2020, Pop-up Globe attracted audiences of approximately 748,000 people to predominantly Shakespeare productions across New Zealand and Australia, constructing five temporary Pop-up Globe playhouses in four cities.
The company constructed the first Pop-up Globe in Auckland CBD, next to the Auckland Town Hall, from February–May 2016; Pop-up Globe's second season ran from 23 February to 17 May 2017 in a newly designed and constructed Pop-up Globe at Ellerslie Racecourse in Auckland.
Pop-up Globe's first international season, promoted by Live Nation Entertainment, ran from 21 September to 3 February 2018 in an area of Kings Domain adjacent to the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne, Australia, which was temporarily called the Shakespeare Gardens.
The company ceased all performances in March 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. A year later, in March 2021, with no foreseeable prospect of further international touring, the Pop-up Globe group of companies was put into liquidation.
The company performed in Auckland at the SkyCity Theatre and Q Theatre in late 2023 and early 2024.https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/02/21/to-be-again-pop-up-globe-returns-with-shakespearen-fare/https://thespinoff.co.nz/pop-culture/01-10-2023/the-truth-behind-the-audacious-return-of-the-pop-up-globe
Background Pop-up Globe was founded in 2015 by Artistic Director Dr Miles Gregory. Co-founder Tobias Grant joined the project at a very early stage. Both are native Aucklanders. Gregory had worked for 18 years in the UK as a director and producer, and Grant had a background in media and marketing.
The first season, featuring the Pop-up Globe Theatre Company performing Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet, with independent visiting productions of Titus Andronicus, The Tempest, Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, Antony and Cleopatra and Hamlet, opened on 18 February 2016, as part of the commemorations of the quatercentenary of Shakespeare's death. Over 100,000 tickets were sold during a 12-week season, making it the largest Shakespeare festival in the Southern Hemisphere.
The second season featured two in-house repertory acting companies, Queen's and King's, performing Much Ado About Nothing/Othello and As You Like It/Henry V respectively. Over 100,000 tickets were sold in the second season.
Theatre
The theatre's architectural plan is based on the published research of Professor Tim Fitzpatrick of Sydney University.
Fitzpatrick's reconstruction synthesised a mathematical projection based on Wenceslaus Hollar's Long View of London from Bankside sketch of London's skyline in the early 1640s with extensive research into the Jacobean ad quadratum technique of architectural planning, and with the results of the limited archaeological evidence available from the site of the original Globe.
Based on this, Pop-up Globe's design was a 16-sided polygon, in external diameter. This was some smaller than Shakespeare's Globe in London, which some scholars and theatre practitioners had judged to be too large. As a consequence of this smaller diameter, the 'yard' where audiences stand was around 40% smaller than the yard at Shakespeare's Globe.
Pop-up Globe was high, with a standing capacity of 300 'groundlings' and 600 seats in three galleries. It was topped by a distinctive 'onion dome', visible in the Hollar sketch.
The interior design of the stage ( in width, as specified in the contract for the Fortune Playhouse) changed significantly between the first and second seasons. The first season employed a canted scaenae frons across four audience bays at the rear of the stage, with four doors in a neo-classical design. The audience was seated in 360°, with "Lord's" and "Gentlemen's" rooms in the middle and upper galleries behind the stage. Based on practical learnings from the first season, the 2017 season featured a flat scaenae frons with three doors in a baroque design, with the audience seated around 270°, with a balcony above the central door, and a musician's gallery above the balcony.
Style of presentation The foundation of performance at Pop-up Globe is the relationship between actors and audience. Direct address is the central feature of the way Shakespeare is played at Pop-up Globe, although some productions have varied the degree to which they embrace direct address as a tool. Allowances are made for what the artistic vision calls 'judicious ad-libs' as often the conditions of performance at Pop-up Globe—weather, planes flying overhead, unexpectedly boisterous audience members—mean that no two performances are the same and actors have to acknowledge the environment around them. Pop-up Globe productions make huge use of live original music and dance, and all productions have ended with a jig danced by the company, For the first three seasons of Pop-up Globe one company was a dedicated 'Jacobean' company, wearing 17th century dress and exploring original conditions of performance to various degrees, while the other company was 'eclectic' and not bound by any early modern conventions.
Actors Pop-up Globe's productions have featured international casts, with approximately 20% of each company coming from outside of New Zealand. Pop-up Globe's companies have included actors from the UK, the US and Australia working alongside local actors. With the exception of the Admiral's Company (Around the Globe in 60 Minutes), the Pembroke's Company (Julius Caesar) and the Irihapeti Company (Emilia), Pop-up Globe actors always work as a repertory company, with actors playing contrasting roles in two different productions: for example, in the 2017 season Chris Huntly-Turner doubled the title role in Henry V with Le Beau in As You Like It. Sometimes doubling is about practicality of rehearsal, (such as the actors playing Othello, Iago and Cassio in Othello doubling as Don John, Conrade and Borachio in Much Ado About Nothing in 2017) sometimes doubling is about a balanced workload (such as Adrian Hooke alternating the title role in Hamlet with the much smaller role of Claudio in Measure For Measure in 2019), and sometimes the doubling is intended to illuminate recurrent tropes in the plays (such as Stephen Lovatt and Jess Hong playing father and daughter in both Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing in the 2019/2020 season).
Performance History
Season One (February - May 2016)
Rehearsals began in Auckland on 5 January 2016, the same day that construction of the playhouse commenced in the carpark beside the Basement Theatre and Q Theatre on Grey's Ave in central Auckland.
Pop-up Globe opened to the public on 16 February 2016, with the in-house Pop-up Globe Theatre Company performing Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet in repertory. Romeo and Juliet (directed by Ben Naylor) was performed in emblematic modern dress, with Jonathan Tynan-Moss and Christel Chapman playing the title roles; Twelfth Night (directed by Miles Gregory) was performed in Jacobean dress by an all-male cast including Daniel Watterson as Olivia, Aaron Richardson as Viola, Stanley Andrew Jackson III as Malvolio and Adrian Hooke as Feste.
The season was originally scheduled to close on Sunday 24 April, the day after the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, but was extended until Sunday 7 May. Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet were performed a total of 97 times, a record-breaking run for Shakespeare in New Zealand.
Over the course of the season, the programme was supplemented with a range of enrichment activities including classes on stage, public talks, a book launch, and guided tours of the playhouse. Pop-up Globe also hosted a number of visiting productions for short engagements: the Auckland Summer Shakespeare presented 8 performances of The Tempest, Byrnes Productions presented eight performances of Antony and Cleopatra, the Young Auckland Shakespeare Company presented two performances of a reverse-gender Much Ado About Nothing, the Lord Lackbeards presented two performances of their all-female Hamlet, Fractious Tash presented four performances of Titus Andronicus, Grae Burton Productions presented four performances of an all-female Henry V and the Ugly Shakespeare Company gave three performances of their schools version of Othello. Loop Media presented a one-night concert, Play On, in which a collection of NZ musicians performed Shakespeare soliloquies set to music by Paul McLaney.
Approximately 102,000 people attended Pop-up Globe during the 2016 season. At that time this was the largest known attendance for a drama festival in New Zealand history.
Season Two (February – May 2017)
After several months of working in secret on a new venue, Pop-up Globe announced in August 2016 that they would be mounting a second season in a new location for 2017. Over 1,200 actors from around the world applied to be part of the audition process that took place through October 2016, and in a media launch on October 25 Pop-up Globe revealed their new location – in the gardens at Auckland's oldest racing club, Ellerslie Racecourse – and the plays that would make up the season: Much Ado About Nothing, Othello, As You Like It and Henry V. This time, Pop-up Globe would have two in-house repertory companies meaning the theatre could open 7 days a week offering 2 performances a day, without reliance on outside productions to keep the doors open.
Concrete foundations for the playhouse were laid in the racecourse gardens in December 2016 and construction began on the first day of rehearsals, Wednesday 4 January 2017. This completely redesigned version of the playhouse opened to the public on 23 February. The Queen's Company performed Much Ado About Nothing (directed by Miriama McDowell) and Othello (directed by Ben Naylor). The Pasifika-infused Much Ado About Nothing featured Semu Filipo and Jacque Drew as Benedick and Beatrice and was set on a banana plantation with Dogberry and Verges functioning as customs officers in charge of ensuring no illegal or dangerous produce entered the island. Othello starred Te Kohe Tuhaka in the title role and Haakon Smested played Iago as a literal manifestation of the devil who was hauled on a chain up into the ceiling by his feet at the end of the play and then re-arose from beneath the stage via a trapdoor, surrounding by fireworks, during the jig. The all-male King's Company performed As You Like It (directed by Tom Mallaburn) and Henry V (directed by Miles Gregory). As You Like It starred first season stalwarts Jonathan Tynan-Moss and Adrian Hooke as Rosalind and Orlando and Stanley Andrew Jackson III as Celia, in Jacobean dress with the court of Duke Frederick played as flamboyant Cavaliers opposite the more sober mild-mannered court of Duke Senior and his fellows in exile. Henry V starred Chris Huntly-Turner in the title role, with the company shifting from Jacobean dress in the court scenes to full medieval armour once in France. The production made use of scaling ladders, pyrotechnic-firing cannons, and flaming arrows were fired across the playhouse into the frons scenae during the siege of Harfleur. All four productions made use of pyrotechnics and mechanised flying technology installed in the playhouse ceiling, the 'heavens'.