Celebrated actor Michael Hurst joined forces with two of New Zealand’s freshest young writers in this innovative new solo work, set in the Shakespearean afterlife.

In Frequently Asked Questions an insomniac called Hamlet discovers a script documenting the end of his life, and begins some serious late-night soul-searching. ‘What a piece of work is a man?’ ‘To be, or not to be?’ These are his FAQs. And Hamlet can’t sleep until he knows.

Writers Natalie Medlock and Dan Musgrove had been working in collaboration with Hurst since early 2010 to develop this semi-autobiographical work. With ‘cameos’ from some of the Bard’s greatest characters and a climax where Hurst unleashed 30 years of stage combat experience on himself, Frequently Asked Questions was Shakespeare as Festival audiences had never seen it.