A love of Shakespeare so deep she got a tattoo of his signature

“It's the signature from Will’s will. I wanted to have a tattoo and the one thing that I felt I had complete confidence in my life that I would never come to regret was my love of Shakespeare!”

And it's that love of Shakespeare she brings to Worthing this summer when she makes her debut in the town’s Rainbow Shakespeare season. She will be playing Lady Macbeth in Macbeth from Tuesday, July 8-Sunday, July 13 and then Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing from Tuesday, July 15-Sunday, July 20.

“I'm originally from Boston, Massachusetts, and I acted in the US touring a lot of Shakespeare up and down the eastern seaboard but I always had a chip on my shoulder about never having gone to drama school so in my 30s I trained at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and fortunately I was able to stay here.”

April runs two theatre companies in Portsmouth – and is delighted now to take her love of Shakespeare to Worthing’s Highdown Gardens: “It is early days with Rainbow Shakespeare for me but if you are working together over an intense period of time, you want people that are really excited about the craft, and the people in Rainbow really are. Everybody I have met has been really passionate and really knowledgeable and it has been lovely.”

As for playing Beatrice: “I think she's one of those roles like Hamlet where the less it is acted and the more truthful it is, the stronger it will be. It's a challenge like Hamlet because it's one of those roles which are an absolute gift. So many people say that they wish they could play Beatrice that I think you become aware of the weight of that, of the other people that have played the role before but you have to remember this is your opportunity to play it, and the role is so well written that everybody can bring something good to it.”

As for the character, the key things are her wit and her heart: “She absolutely has heart but she also has stubbornness, a delightful stubbornness. Most people would end up rolling their eyes at her, and Benedick would certainly want to run and hide from her at times but she is a real person. She's got her own flaws but she is endearing and I think her endearingness is that she so clearly cares about making other people happy.”

Macbeth runs from Tuesday, July 8-Sunday, July 13, offering battles, witches, murder, ghosts and things that go bump in the night – all the ingredients that make a thrilling, theatrical experience in a spine-chilling, spooky play about a scheming wife and her ambitious husband.

Much Ado About Nothing runs from Tuesday, July 15-Sunday, July 20, two intertwined love stories: one, where the feisty Benedick and equally fiery Beatrice believe fervently they can’t stand each other – but their friends have other ideas. The second, where the romantic Claudio and Hero woo and prepare to wed, only to have the match threatened by the villainous Don John.

Tickets available through Worthing Theatres box office on 01903 206206 or wtm.uk or on the gate 90 minutes before each performance. Visit www.rainbowshakespeare.co.uk for more information.