When the audience take their seats at the annual Leura Shakespeare Festival they are in for a wild ride.
This season's play by Sport for Jove, Timon of Athens, opens with a party scene set in Greece as the financial crisis of 2008 unfolds, complete with electronic dance music and Greek dancing.
"It will hopefully feel like the audience is at the party with us," said actor Eleni Cassimatis, who is making her debut with Sport for Jove at Leura's Everglades Gardens from January 6-21.
Cassimatis was certainly feeling the party vibes when the Gazette spoke to her during rehearsals in late 2023.
"Rehearsals are so much fun, they've been absolutely wild," she said. "We've been really diving into the physicality of what it means to be in a world of excess and debauchery and wealth and indulgence."
She said the party atmosphere is given a massive boost by the "amazing music" of Angus Evans which weaves traditional Greek music with the world of electronic dance beats.
Described in Sport for Jove's promotional material as a "black comedy dressed up as a Greek tragedy", Timon of Athens might be one of Shakespeare's lesser known plays but its contemporary relevance is never in doubt, according to Cassimatis.
"At its core, Timon of Athens is about an excessively wealthy Greek man who has everything the world could offer him but then he falls on hard times and all his so-called friends abandon him," she said. "That in itself is a contemporary story. We know what the fickleness of friendships are like."
To use a festive reference point, Cassimatis said the play is like a reverse telling of the Charles Dickens classic, A Christmas Carol.
"It feels like the anti-A Christmas Carol because it's about a really wonderful, joyous, wealthy and happy man whose downfall we witness - right down to him hating people," she said.
Cassimatis plays the role of the soldier Alcibiades, one of Timon's few steadfast friends who is banished from Athens for her loyalty.
A self-confessed "huge Shakespeare nerd", she said "getting to be part of a lesser known Shakespeare play feels very, very special".
Being part of the critically-acclaimed Sport for Jove company is an added bonus.
"I'm a big fan of all the work the company does because it's always bold and challenging," she said.
Cassimatis' Sport for Jove debut comes on the back of a year where she played one of the witches in Macbeth for Bell Shakespeare Company at the Sydney Opera House.
"That was amazing," she said. "I think everyone should add playing a witch to their bucket list... We had so much fun with it."
Performing on the Sydney Opera House stage is certainly a long way from the backyard productions Cassimatis put on as child growing up in Orange.
"I got the acting bug really young," she said. "As far back as I can remember I was putting on shows in the backyard, making our neighbours come and watch."
She continued her performing passion at Kinross School in Orange where the primary school musicals by teacher Mr Hordynsky were an annual highlight.
"I just remember that being the best time of the year," she said.
Sport for Jove's season of Timon of Athens is being performed at Everglades Gardens in Leura from January 6-21. For bookings, visit: www.sportforjove.com.au/timon-of-athens.
