What if Macbeth were a 13-year-old child star and Lady Macbeth were her ruthless stage mum?
That’s the starting point for Yve Blake’s new play, Mackenzie, the follow-up to her TikTok-trending debut musical, Fangirls.
Directed by Virginia Gay (Colin from Accounts; Safe Home), Mackenzie is set to premiere next year as one of three shows in Bell Shakespeare’s season.
The season also includes a national tour of a more traditional interpretation of Macbeth and a new production of Julius Caesar.
Anthony Taufa first started working with Bell Shakespeare as part of its education program in 2012, and will star next year in the title role of Macbeth. (Supplied: Bell/Pierre Toussaint)
Coming off the back of the success of Fangirls, which played at London’s historic Lyric Hammersmith Theatre in 2024, Blake wanted to write something that was just for her.
“I just wanted to make me laugh,” she says. “And I thought of this idea of remixing Macbeth in this way, and it just kind of fell out of me.”
Mackenzie is set in the mid-00s, in what might be described as the “golden age” of kids TV networks, like Disney Channel and Nickelodeon.
It’s the era when TV-slash-pop stars like Lindsay Lohan, Amanda Bynes and Miley Cyrus emerged.
All struggled with the pressures of adolescent fame.
In Mackenzie, Blake isn’t just reworking one of Shakespeare’s most famous plays, but commenting more broadly on society’s obsession with youth and celebrity.
“We all know these mythic stories of how child stardom chews people up and spits them out,” Blake says.
“I think I have written this show because I am of the generation that inhaled Dance Moms and watched what happened to Lindsay and Paris [Hilton] … I internalised the lore [about those celebrities] and can look back now and go, ‘Woah, that was horrific.'”
Blake noticed that the same obsession with youth was applied to her when Fangirls opened when she was in her mid-20s.
Blake (centre) starred as Edna, a teenager obsessed with a boy band, in the original production of Fangirls. (Supplied: Belvoir/Brett Boardman)
“A huge theme in [Mackenzie] is [that] time is of the essence; you are not getting any younger,” she says.
“When you are no longer precocious, it’s very easy to worry that people won’t be interested anymore.
“It’s been quite interesting, honestly, to write about that anxiety.”
Finding a new audience for Shakespeare
The experience of making Fangirls — which premiered in Brisbane in 2019, before touring Australia in 2021 — made Blake realise something she loves about making theatre: reaching audiences across generations.
“If you’re 12, 22 or 72, you can come [to Mackenzie] and have so much fun,” she says.
That broad audience drew her to Bell Shakespeare, as did their education program, where actors take the Bard’s plays directly into schools and communities.
“It’s been fun to write this and think, ‘How can I make this the funnest school excursion for someone to be dragged along to?'” Blake says.
“It’s really fun to be making new work at a company that largely makes plays by a dead guy. I love that diva [Shakespeare].”
Peter Evans, Bell Shakespeare’s artistic director, says the company has a history of creating new work, including a musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, called The Lovers, by Laura Murphy, which opened in 2022.
Brittanie Shipway as Hermia and Jerrod Smith as Lysander in Bell Shakespeare’s first musical, The Lovers, in 2022. (Supplied: Bell Shakespeare/Daniel Boud)
“But they have to be exceptional for us to do them,” he says. “[Mackenzie] is of the quality that bumps a Shakespeare play off our slate.
“It’s very much for younger audiences, like 16 to 30 [years old]. It’s naughty, it’s risque, but it’s also smart, and I’m hoping our more traditional audience will think it’s clever and will enjoy it also.”
Blake recalls that the idea of studying Shakespeare in high school would elicit a groan from some of her peers. It is a response she understands.
“I get why the complexity of the language is a real barrier for kids,” she says. “And if you look at the actual story of Macbeth, it’s about a guy who wants to be king. Do you know anyone who wants to be a king? I don’t.
“Because being a teenager is hard enough, and then you have to understand Shakespeare? Give them a break.”
Plays for our times
The more traditional Macbeth that will tour more than 20 venues around Australia in 2026 is a reprisal of Bell’s 2023 production, this time starring Anthony Taufa (Wolf Like Me) and Matilda Ridgway (Bump) as the recklessly ambitious couple at its centre.
Hazem Shammas on Coriolanus
The production is set in the 20s, with the whole cast always on stage, observing the action. It gives the effect, Evans explains, of a dream, or history repeating itself.
“In the case of Macbeth, it’s like a nightmare,” he says.
“As the play goes on, it feels a bit like Macbeth can see [the other actors], and they kind of become the ghosts of the play.”
Earlier this year, Taufa and Ridgway starred together in Coriolanus, alongside lead actor Hazem Shammas (The Correspondent) — who played the title role in the 2023 Macbeth.
Evans sees the final production in Bell Shakespeare’s 2026 season, Julius Caesar, as a companion piece to Coriolanus.
It will star Leon Ford (The Last Anniversary) in the title role and Brigid Zengeni (Totally Completely Fine) as Brutus, who orchestrates a plan to assassinate an increasingly tyrannical Caesar.
“I felt if I could make Coriolanus work, I really wanted to go straight into looking at Julius Caesar,” Evans says.
“I’m really interested in looking at that play and seeing how it’s changed over the years. And it feels very timely because it’s about a society’s fear of autocracy.
“Shakespeare seems to suggest the plebs [free Roman citizens] are into the idea of being ruled by one very powerful man. I thought that was really intriguing.”
The suggestion resonates with recent comments by US President Donald Trump, where he said Americans may “like a dictator”.
“People would talk about whether democracy was working for people when Trump was running [for president],” Evans says. (Pictured: Leon Ford, who will play Julius Caesar). (Supplied: Bell/Pierre Toussaint)
But the story of betrayal and lust for power in Julius Caesar is “always timely”, Evans explains. The last time he directed the play was in 2011, the year after Julia Gillard toppled Kevin Rudd as prime minister.
“There’s always something happening,” Evans says.
