Come you Spirits performs their Macbeth as part of the
St Albans Folk Festival
7.00pm Saturday 27th April 2024
in the bed of the Gunanday River
by the river camp across from the Settlers Arms
on Darkinjung Country
St Albans Folk Festival
7.00pm Saturday 27th April 2024
in the bed of the Gunanday River
by the river camp across from the Settlers Arms
on Darkinjung Country
A supernatural prophecy propels a husband and wife to kill for the crown. It’s a story that roars with the refraction of the many shades of love and the human spirit – a spirit that can overcome all odds, or be taken over. Love that can inspire greatness, or drive us to darkness. It invites us to sit with our shadows, claim them and know that we always have a choice.
In our version there are only FOUR CHARACTERS who tell the story, reduced from 38!
Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, The Witch and Macduff.
We do this to focus the key themes into key archetypes – many characters still exist in the story but we don’t show them, only refer to them.
In addition we have a Narrator, Nathan Meola, who is your leader through the tale, initiating the proceedings, checking in on you and the story’s progress twice during the show, and closing the event.
Our aim is to amplify the CLARITY, the MAGIC, the PACE and the STAKES, and the show is an hour and a half.
In our version there are only FOUR CHARACTERS who tell the story, reduced from 38!
Macbeth, Lady Macbeth, The Witch and Macduff.
We do this to focus the key themes into key archetypes – many characters still exist in the story but we don’t show them, only refer to them.
In addition we have a Narrator, Nathan Meola, who is your leader through the tale, initiating the proceedings, checking in on you and the story’s progress twice during the show, and closing the event.
Our aim is to amplify the CLARITY, the MAGIC, the PACE and the STAKES, and the show is an hour and a half.
Jo Bloom is our Lady Macbeth. In our repertoire she also plays Helena, Cleopatra, Caliban, and the Nurse, and has performed Shakespeare across the UK and Australia in castles, theatres, cathedrals and botanical gardens. She’s worked with the British Shakespeare Company, Australian Shakespeare Company, and has performed in every production by Come you Spirits, which she founded. Jo also works as an energy healer and plant medicine practitioner.
Sontaan Hopson plays The Witch, and in our repertoire also plays Ariel, Juliet, Charmian and Hermia. She is a multiple award-winning actress of stage and screen, who has toured theatre across Australia including Sydney Opera House with Oneness – Voice Without Form, as Calpurnia in Julius Caesar, and winning People’s Choice Award for Pride and Prejudice Short and Sweet, as well as playing Juliet, Ariel, Hermia and the Witch with Come you Spirits. Sontaan is also a qualified Spiral Practitioner, emotional clearance facilitator, and energy worker, helping raise the vibrations of all across the globe.
Charles Mayer is our Macbeth, and in our repertoire also plays Prospero, Antony, Demetrius-Bottom, and the Friar. He is a graduate of Guildhall School of Music & Drama and a former infantry commander in the British Army. He has performed in many TV and film productions and on the West End stage, Shanghai, and across Australia and New Zealand with State Theatre Company of South Australia and Pop-Up Globe, and is co-founder of Come you Spirits, performing with the other actors in all five productions.
Ciarán O’Riordan plays MacDuff, and in our repertoire also plays Puck and Ferdinand. Recent other credits include Grain in the Blood at KXT, Mel Stanwyck in Chimerica (New Theatre), and original plays What Have You Done (Chippen St. Theatre) and Sydney The Folk Musical (Newcastle Fringe, Sydney Folk Festival). He has also devised and directed a pop-up production of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Past Shakespeare credits include Pistol in The Merry Wives of Windsor (New Theatre), Lysander in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (The Acting Factory), Pericles in Pericles of Tyre (The Acting Factory), Ned Poins in Henry IV Parts One and Two with Streamed Shakespeare, as well as Silvius in As You Like It and Andrew Aguecheek in Twelfth Night as part of ACA’s Graduating Company of 2020.