Sport for Jove has announced it will suspend its traditional summer season of outdoor Shakespeare for 2026–27, citing escalating production costs and the growing financial pressures facing independent theatre companies.

In an open letter published on 6 November, artistic director Damien Ryan said the decision to pause the season after 17 years was an extraordinarily difficult one, but necessary to protect the quality of the company’s work and ensure artists and technicians are properly remunerated.

“There is no single or dramatic reason for it,” Ryan wrote. “The truth is both simpler and harder: sustaining ambitious, professional, independent theatre in Australia has become increasingly difficult.”

He pointed to rising expenses across almost every aspect of production, including venue hire, accommodation, ticketing fees, insurance, transport, equipment, rehearsal space and technical infrastructure, arguing that resources available to independent companies had failed to keep pace.

Sport for Jove’s As You Like It at Bella Vista Farm Park. Photo © Kate Williams.

Sport for Jove, founded in 2009, has built a following through its open-air Shakespeare productions in parks, gardens and other outdoor locations, including Leura and Bella Vista in NSW. Over 17 years, the company has presented 35 productions, involving more than 340 artists and technicians and reaching an audience of more than 100,000.

Several Sport for Jove Summer Season productions have won or been nominated for Sydney Theatre Awards awards, such as its ambitious Rose Riot history cycle (2018) and its acclaimed 2013 staging of Edmund de Rostand’s Cyrano de Bergerac, which collected Best Independent Production, Best Director, and a Best Actor award for Yalin Ozucelik.

Lizzie Schebesta ansd Yalin Ozucelik in Sport for Jove’s Cyrano. Photo © Seiya Taguchi

Ryan said the company had chosen to pause rather than compromise the ambition and quality of its productions or the conditions of the people making them.

The break will provide an opportunity to reconsider how Sport for Jove can establish a sustainable future for its signature outdoor season, retaining its traditional venues while potentially expanding into more locations across NSW.

The announcement marks a significant interruption to a distinctive feature of the Australian summer theatre calendar, with the company having weathered floods, bushfires, the pandemic and shifting arts funding landscapes throughout its history.

Ryan emphasised that the decision was not intended as a farewell, describing it instead as an opportunity to rethink the company’s future.

“This is not a goodbye,” he wrote. “It is an opportunity to think about what comes next and to find the means to do that sustainably.”