Bard in the Barracks Announces:

After what would have been our fifteenth anniversary season in 2020 was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we are delighted to announce that Bard in the Barracks will be making a cautious and modest return in 2021 by staging one production (for now, anyway) in a brand new location.

We’ll be celebrating our fifteenth properly with a move just up the hill from Odell Park to the adjoining Fredericton Botanic Garden to stage The Tempest, with performances running from June 24^th through July 4^th.

The Botanic Garden will offer audiences a new look in an equally stunning and picturesque outdoor setting, along with plenty of open space to spread out, with physical distancing restrictions still in place.

It will also provide a perfect backdrop for The Tempest, Shakespeare’s much-loved tale of romance, comedy, revenge, and reconciliation, last staged by Bard in Odell Park in 2013. This time around, the setting, action, and look of the play will be whimsically and creatively inspired by early science fiction ‘B’ movies and television series of the 1950s and 60s. 

The events of The Tempest centre around Prospero, a sorcerer/scholar and the rightful Duke of Milan, who has been usurped and sent into exile on a distant island (or in this case, alien planet). When a (space)ship piloted by all of Prospero’s enemies crashes ashore, the opportunity to gain revenge is suddenly at hand, and Miranda, Prospero’s daughter, experiences a world of new sensations as she encounters other human beings for the first time.

It will all make for a fun and fantastical evening of high drama, comedy, and romance by the pond, under the setting sun, and surrounded by the Botanic Garden’s blooms of late June. Should current provincial restrictions on gathering sizes remain in place, audiences will be limited, so don’t wait to book your ticket! Keep watching this space for information on how to do just that, coming soon.

For more information, email lfalken@unb.ca