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  FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

  Fringe is a Family Affair

  If it wasn’t for the Adelaide Fringe, director Alice Teasdale wouldn’t have her husband, her children, or many of her closest friends.

  Alice directed her first play in Fringe 1998. At her fourth Fringe, in 2004, she met her husband. Now, with two small sons, they’re working together on her sixth Fringe production.

  “The Fringe is an amazing opportunity,” she says. “It makes living in Adelaide a privilege. It’s an international event which pulls huge and diverse audiences, and it’s here in our home town.”

  “I’m proud that we’re a local company, competing effectively with all the interstate and overseas acts, and that we’re still doing it after ten years. We must be doing something right!”

  This Rough Magic Theatre & Film was created for the 1998 Fringe production of The Tempest in the Adelaide Zoo. In 2000, Alice returned from interstate to direct Richard II in Old Parliament House. In 2002, Macbeth in the Old Adelaide Gaol pulled huge crowds and toured schools.

  While setting up the Arch at Holden Street Theatres for Rough Magic’s 2004 Fringe production, Ibsen’s Ghosts, Alice met Stuart; and not long after the 2006 production, Checkhov & Stoppard Bite-Sized, they were married. The imminent arrival of their second child meant that the 2007 Fringe was the first since ’98 that didn’t see a Rough Magic event.

  Now, Alice, Stuart and a big cast and crew are working on a huge and exciting production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It, to be staged in the Adelaide Botanic Gardens.

  A lot of Shakespeare’s plays have been performed in the gardens in the past, but not usually by local companies.

  “Shakespeare’s fantastic in the Fringe, especially outdoors at twilight,” says Alice. “This production’s promising to be our best yet - with the most talented, experienced cast we’ve ever managed to assemble, and a gorgeous garden setting.”

  Stuart is the official stage sets person, but spends most rehearsals keeping Hamish, 2, and Orlando, 7 months, happy at home.

  “I enjoy seeing a team come together to present something like this. To support it is great,” he says.

  As You Like it will be performed at 7:30 on 23, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29 Feb and 1, 3, 4, 13, 14 & 15 March. Actors are available for a photo call in the gardens at short notice. Images are available on the Fringe website. There’s also more at www.thisroughmagic.com.

  For more information, contact Alice Teasdale on 0410 476 427 or 81629609.

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