Shakespeare play becomes queer Brummie love story

Shakespeare play becomes queer Brummie love story2 hours agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleJames Bovillin BirminghamBBCArtistic director Joe Murphy said the show was "alive with the accents and lived experiences of the city"Changing the gender of characters in a new production of one of Shakespeare's most famous plays is "a massive celebration of fluidity", a theatre's artistic director has said.Traditionally set in ancient Greece, A Midsummer Night's Dream has been re-set in modern day Birmingham for a production at the city's Rep theatre.It will include regional accents delivering Shakespearean dialogue, punctuated by hit pop music and original songs.The character Lysander has been changed to Lysandra to form an all-female couple with Hermia, something which artistic director Joe Murphy said made the text "more relevant to the experience of young people" by showing that "love is never wrong". Murphy was previously a director at Shakespeare's Globe in London.He said he believed that Shakespeare purists would love the adaption, adding that "we haven't mucked around" with the original text, but had added "all these different flavours and textures"."Any shift or change has been done with love," he said.Birmingham RepCharlotte Wallis from Wolverhampton is making her professional stage debut as HelenaAbout half of the cast are from the West Midlands, including three who were found during open auditions.Two, including Charlotte Wallis from Wolverhampton, who plays Helena, will make their professional stage debuts. Wallis auditioned after seeing a social media post."It said: 'We want real people that you'd see in a Birmingham nightclub', and I thought: 'That's me'," she said.She added it was a "full-circle moment", having trained with the Rep's youth company."Being able to find truth through silliness and silli...