The Old Globe will present free Monday night film screenings of Shakespeare this summer to celebrate the Balboa Park Centennial and the theater’s 80th anniversary, organizers announced.
On June 29, the Globe will present “Henry V,” directed by Laurence Olivier in 1944, in the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre.
It will be followed by Orson Welles’s 1965 classic “Chimes at Midnight” on July 13 and Joss Whedon’s 2012 “Much Ado About Nothing” on Aug. 3, both on the Donald and Darlene Shiley Stage in the Old Globe Theatre, part of the Conrad Prebys Theatre Center.
The series concludes Aug. 24 with “West Side Story,” Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins’ groundbreaking 1961 New York City riff on the Bard’s Romeo and Juliet. It will screen in the Festival Theatre.
“The Globe has put together a full year of laughter, fun and the most vivid theatricality we could muster,” said Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. “Among the things we are proudest of, as leaders and custodians of The Old Globe, is the breadth of work this theater produces.
“Indoors we’ll welcome one of our closest friends to reimagine a classic musical with a Shakespeare connection of its own, and we’ll present the West Coast Premiere of a new stage adaptation of a beloved Sherlock Holmes mystery. Plus, as a special double-anniversary gift to San Diego, we’re going to throw our doors open for free screenings of four of the best Shakespeare films ever made.
“It’s going to be a yearlong party on our campus and a demonstration of all the wonders the Globe has brought our city for eight decades.”