In the 400th anniversary year of William Shakespeare’s death, SMF hosts a re-staging of the tragedy of Pericles, Prince of Tyre, featuring the acclaimed British Shakespeare Ensemble called Passion in Practice. This cue-script rehearsed performance of Shakespeare’s Pericles will be in Original Pronunciation (OP), the accent Shakespeare’s actors spoke in, based on research by renowned linguist and scholar, Professor David Crystal. Considered by modern audiences to be easier to understand than Shakespeare spoken in a modern English accent, the Tragedy of Pericles was a collaboration with a young colleague of Shakespeare’s in 1608, and an exploration with his actors of voyage, self-discovery, romance and reunion. Underscoring the play with Max Richter’s reworking of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons: Recomposed, featuring the German orchestra l’arte del mondo led by Daniel Hope, this Shakespeare Ensemble recreates a modern incarnation of Shakespeare’s company of actors, who worked together full-time for two decades. The Passion in Practice Ensemble aims to mimic the working relationship Shakespeare’s actor would have had, and this production of Pericles will not be set on the moon, on a cruise-ship or in the 1920s: the setting will be the Savannah Music Festival, with a chamber orchestra nestled on stage. The performance will explore those exciting moments when the musicians follow the actors, the actors follow the musicians and the magical times when both are led by something else. This is a not-to-be-missed program of music, theater and spoken word.