FROM a small, tidy room up the stairs at the St Columba’s United Reform Church building in Priory Street, Mei Wilshire runs the Theatre and Art Performance York project.

“We’re a York production company that produces monthly events for the community and educational establishments, putting on events ranging from York artists to international ones,” says Mei.

The latest such event is of the international variety, when Mei presents Shakespeare Unbound’s touring show A Gift To The Future, a fast-moving one-act play suitable for all the family, written and performed by Colin David Reese, at 6pm on Wednesday.

“They’re coming here as part of their 2013 UK tour of their re-telling of all Shakespeare’s plays in one hour, with Colin in the guise of John Heminges, who returns to his house on the site of the Globe Theatre in 1623 with a precious package: the first edition of William Shakespeare’s ‘Comedies, Histories and Tragedies’, which he has just collected from the printer.”

Throughout his working life, Heminges had been at Shakespeare’s side. As he starts to read through the plays, the memories come flooding back of performances, backstage intrigues, successes and disasters.

The play will be staged in the carpeted church, with the audience seated in the cushioned pew seating for 150 and Reese using the temporarily cleared floor as his performance space.

Wednesday’s performance is being complemented by 120 Bard-inspired drawings by French artist Jean-Noel Vandaele, whose exhibition, The Theatre of William Shakespeare, is on show from today until February 27 on assorted walls throughout St Columba’s.

“Jean-Noel has contacts in the University of York philosophy department and said, ‘I know you’ve got this play coming up; can I put an exhibition on to go with it?’,” says Mei. “He’s coming to York for a week with his wife, so it will be lovely to have him here.

“His work is unique, very colourful and elaborate, and it will be for sale.”

Mei set up in Theatre and Art Performance York in 2010 as an independent commercial company with no public funding. “I employ three students from York St John University in creative positions and we work with a professional York theatre company called We Are Theatre, run by Donna Riley and Charlotte Gray. “They performed A Christmas Carol here on December 23 and 24 with a cast of 12 York actors and got a really good response,” says Mei.

“We work with other local groups too such as the Micklegate Quarterly Group, and we contribute funds back into the community from the shows’ box-office take, which helps to make a thriving community economy.”

Mei, originally from Orkney in Scotland, trained as a choreographer in contemporary dance at York St John, moving to York in 2003 and staying in this “fantastic city” ever since. “But I didn’t do brilliantly at choreography; I do better at running an art company!” she says.

Theatre and Art Performance York presents Shakespeare Unbound’s A Gift To The Future, St Columba’s United Reform Church, Priory Street, York, Wednesday, 6pm. Tickets: £6, concessions £4 for under 16s and seniors, on 07871 268688, online at artperformancespace.co.uk or on the door.

More information on this event is available on the above website.