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Beggar’s Opera

The Beggar’s Opera at York University

About two years ago Gwen Dobie, Catherine Robbin and I had lunch on a patio under a tree, sipping white wine and evaluating our production of Dido and Aeneas at York University. We were exhausted but happy after our initial collaboration, and keen to sink our teeth into something even bigger. That’s when the idea was hatched to produce The Beggar’s Opera at York. We open next week after a year of planning, designing and rehearsing. The production is high energy, imaginative, and a little off the wall. Gwen presents the opera as a “play within a play” set in a… Read More »The Beggar’s Opera at York University

Recipe for collaboration

Up here at York University we are exploring undiscovered territory. In a truly daring and innovative experiment, all of the various departments in our Fine Arts Faculty are collaborating on a production of a theatre piece written three centuries ago – a work so important, so controversial, so wildly popular that it toppled the London theatre giants of the time, bringing the musical genius Georg Frederic Handel to his knees financially and artistically. The work is John Gay’s Beggar’s Opera and it is going to be a wild and wacky show. Our Beggar’s Opera production culminates in a week long… Read More »Recipe for collaboration