What Country Friends is This?

With my Aberdeen Performing Arts hat on I’m delighted to have had the opportunity to produce What Country Friends is This? –  a dialogue between Aberdeen’s past and the present.

In 1601 the King’s Players visited and performed in Aberdeen. At that time travelling players from England toured and performed throughout Europe including the important Baltic sea port of Gdańsk in Poland – now home to a brand new Shakespeare theatre. Taking inspiration from this historic visit of the King’s Players to Aberdeen, our performance weaved verbatim stories of arrival from Aberdeen’s Polish community with stories of travelling players past and present alongside moments of arrival in Shakespeare’s greatest plays.

What Country Friends is This? was performed site-specific at King’s College in the University of Aberdeen and in the city’s Maritime Museum.

The project was a partnership project between Aberdeen Performing Arts, Dr Andrew Gordon at the Centre for Early Modern Studies at the University of Aberdeen and the WORD Centre for Creative Writing at the University of Aberdeen. The performances formed part of Aberdeen’s wider Silver City Stories weekend.

Alasdair Hunter – Director & Writer
Beata Tschirch – Interviewer & Writer
Rachael Miller – Stage Manager

Cast
Clare Marcie
David Rankine
Ewan Somers
Josh Whitelaw

With thanks to Helen Lynch from the WORD Centre for Creative Writing