Coming up roses … an artist’s impression of the pop-up Shakespeare theatre in York — Coming up roses … an artist’s impression of the pop-up theatre which is due to open in York in June 2018. Photograph: Shakespeare Rose theatre

Shakespeare's Rose theatre gets go-ahead to pop up in York

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The 13-sided temporary structure, modelled on the Elizabethan playhouse, will house four Shakespeare plays directed by Lindsay Posner and Damian Cruden

A 950-capacity pop-up open-air theatre modelled on Shakespeare’s Rose will rise next summer on a scruffy car park in York, to present a three-month season of Shakespeare plays. York planners have just given permission for the 13-sided theatre to be built on the open ground in the historic city centre, beside Clifford’s Tower.

The season at the grandly named Shakespeare’s Rose theatre will begin on 25 June. Two well-known directors will take on the four plays. Damian Cruden, artistic director of the Theatre Royal in York for the last two decades, and director of the much revived production of The Railway Children featuring a real steam train, will direct A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Macbeth. Lindsay Posner, a multi-award-winning director who has worked extensively in the West End and with the RSC, and whose Death and the Maiden at the Royal Court won two Olivier awards, will direct Richard III and the opening production of Romeo and Juliet.

The theatre will be built from scaffolding, timber and corrugated iron, with 600 seats (cushioned, unlike Shakespeare’s Globe in London) and room for 350 groundlings. No seat will be further than 15 metres from the stage. James Cundall, chief executive of the Yorkshire-based Lunchbox Theatrical Productions, whose idea it was, promises “breathtaking, spine-tingling, heart-stopping moments”.

The original Rose was built in 1587 on London’s South Bank, and rediscovered in 1989. Its foundations gave the first concrete evidence of the dimensions of a Shakespearean theatre, and just as the success of the original prompted a string of other theatres to open in the area, its rediscovery sparked several modern versions, including the Rose in Kingston, Surrey, and the Swan in Stratford-upon-Avon, while the design of Shakespeare’s Globe was modified to incorporate the new evidence .

Although it is not certain that Shakespeare’s Kings Men got as far as York in his lifetime, during their long months touring when plague closed the London theatres, there are many references to York and the Yorkists in his history plays, including the famous soliloquy in Richard III: “Now is the winter of our discontent, / Made glorious summer by this sun of York.”

The theatre, which is claimed to be the first of its kind in Europe, will stand in a mock Tudor fairground, with themed food and entertainment including free performances from the back of carts. There has already been some grumbling in York about the loss of scarce city centre parking spaces. The new theatre will rise only a few yards from the site of an epic planning battle over English Heritage plans to create a new visitor centre at the base of the mound of Clifford’s Tower. That plan met with such fury that it is currently on hold pending an appeal against planning permission.

Ticket prices at Shakespeare’s Rose will range from groundlings standing at £12.50 to seats at £59.95. Booking is now open.