The Company

Sprite Productions was founded in 2004 by Liam and Hester Evans-Ford. We are committed to producing high quality site specific theatre that is exiting and accessible.

Site Specific theatre is difficult to define. Its aim, we believe, is to explore the boundaries of theatrical experience. The chosen site could be anything from a bedroom to a graveyard. Site specific work allows us to use the venue to enhance the chosen piece of work as well as the dramatic experience.

Sprite Productions is taking its traditional and classical background and merging it with the more weird and wonderful world of site specific work. This means we are able to take anything from a Shakespearean comedy to a Chekovian tragedy, a Molliere farce or a Schaffer history and place them in alternative surrounds knowing that with our understanding and love of these plays, mixed with the excitement and intrigue generated by our venues, we can create an experience truly unique, accessible and enchanting to our audiences.

2005 – 2008

In our first season at Ripley, we performed one of Shakespeare's most famous comedies, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a play that could not be more suitable for open air, site specific theatre. We had a two week run, and the play was enjoyed by about 2500 people. The year after, we chose a more challenging play, Romeo and Juliet; which, despite being a tragedy, was another success, running for three weeks and seen by about 4000 people. Then in 2007, the grounds acted as a stage for Much Ado About Nothing, and despite the very poor weather, Shakespeare’s sharp wit and blunt words attracted another large audience. 2008 brought Sir Toby Belch and Malvolio to Ripley with our production of Twelfth Night, which once again had a three week run and was enjoyed by all. Also The Factory came to Ripley to perform an exclusive production of their award winning unique show Hamlet which contributed to another successful year.”

2009

2009 saw us move away from our previous productions by not working in the promenade style. Instead we cleared an Island in the middle of Ripley Lake, built a bridge over from the mainland, erected seating banks in the round and produced The Tempest to sold out audiences for 3 weeks. We then played as guests of York Theatre Royal for a week in the Museum Gardens.

Our guest production for 2009 was The Comedy of Errors as Shakespeare's Globe visited for 2 evenings.

This was also the inaugural year of our Sprite Summer School for 17 – 21 year olds where our youth company learned about stage craft, voice, movement, singing, music therapy, verse speaking, stage combat and performance skills.

2010

Our sixth year in Ripley sees us producing a play that was chossen by our audience members. Over 500 votes were received with As You Like It coming out as winner. The production fits beautifully with some of the sites at Ripley and the woods will allow us to create the mystical Forest of Arden in some truly memorable ways.