Lakespeare and Company founder Taimus Werner-Gibbings says following the success in January of Shakespeare by the Lakes' free production of Much Ado About Nothing, the company will return next summer with another comedy by William Shakespeare.  It, too, will be free.

Stage and screen actor/director Christopher Stollery has been attached to direct Twelfth Night. Werner-Gibbings says, "It's probably Shakespeare's best romantic comedy and it fits in with the outdoor, summery, pastorally vibe we're trying to give people."

Werner-Gibbings was inspired by events like New York's Shakespeare in the Park. He says of the inaugural production of Much Ado, directed by and starring Lexi Sekuless and Duncan Driver, "I was hoping there would be more people in the audience than in the cast."

It succeeded well beyond that. Much Ado About Nothing had an audience of 4230 people over its four-night run from February 14 to 17. There were 780 at the first night in Tuggeranong Town Park and 670 at the second; 1850 at Glebe Park in Civic; and 930 at Queen Elizabeth Park in Queanbeyan. As well as Driver and Sekuless, Werner-Gibbings had Paul Leverenz as production and stage manager. This core group will return.

Much Ado cost $28,000 to mount. Members of the public donated $14,000 and several corporate sponsors came on board to help bring the project to life.  Now that Shakespeare by the Lakes has proven itself, Werner-Gibbings hopes artsAct will provide support for next year's production.

"We've put in an application for a grant; we have a better product to sell and experience."

Some of last year's corporate sponsors have returned, new ones are coming on board, and he is looking for others.

There are some differences this time. Lakespeare and Company is now an unincorporated association with a few thousand dollars left over from last time to put towards the next production. Driver and Sekuless will focus their energies on acting this time: they and the rest of the cast (yet to be finalised) will work under Stollery's direction.

Stollery says, "It's all happening."

He is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Art and the Australian Film Television & Radio School who has worked with Sydney Theatre Company, Belvoir Street and the Ensemble and appeared in TV series including Sea Patrol and The Flying Doctors.

Stollery was an associate artist for 15 years with the Bell Shakespeare Company, appearing in 12  of its productions in such roles as Hamlet, Petruchio and Mark Antony and directing for its educational section. Twelfth Night will mark his first time directing a mainstage production.

Stollery met Sekuless in London in 2012 while he was touring in the Sydney Theatre Company's production Big and Little with Cate Blanchett and kept in touch with her. Although he didn't get to see last year's Much Ado About Nothing, he says its reception "shows how ready Canberra audiences are to embrace something like this".

Stollery says Twelfth Night's theme of gender reversal - with the shipwrecked character Viola disguising herself as a man to search for her twin brother Sebastian - is "very current".  He notes that the Feast of Twelfth Night in Elizabethan times was a time of revelry,  when servants and their masters and men and women swapped roles,  and this period of disorder is represented by, among others,  the comic characters of Sir Toby Belch and Sir Andrew Aguecheek.  They conspire to torment the steward Malvolio, who is a stickler for order.

It's too early for him to comment specifically on his plans for the Canberra production. But he's been in outdoor plays and says in terms of acting in such performances, "You've got to really go for it," adopting a range and style that is "unashamed and bold".

He thinks this Twelfth Night will be "a big, fun, disorderly production - it's a comedy."

Shakespeare by the Lakes will return in February 2019 with Twelfth Night. For more information, to make a donation or to become a sponsor, email lakespeare.events@gmail.com, visit sbtl.online or the Facebook page Shakespeare by the Lakes (facebook.com/Lakespeare).