Obsessed with introducing new audiences, particularly young people, to live theatre, Yve Blake chats with Lenny Ann Low about her reimagining of Macbeth for Bell Shakespeare, in which the lead character is a 13-year-old TV star with a cut-throat stage mum.

Writer Yve Blake with Virginia Gay, the director of Mackenzie. Photo courtesy of Bell Shakespeare

Award-winning playwright, screenwriter, songwriter and performer Yve Blake, who is best known as the creator of the musical FANGIRLS, grew to love William Shakespeare as a teenager. The spark came during an English class in Year nine when her teacher announced they would be studying The Bard’s 16th-century tragedy Romeo and Juliet.

“There was sort of a collective groan,” says Blake. “Like, ‘Oh, now we...