THE new York company Common Ground Theatre Ensemble is launched on Saturday with a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s problem play, A Winter’s Tale.

Based in the Department of Theatre, Film and Television at the University of York’s Heslington East site, the company is run by co-directors Hannah Davies, performer and playwright, and Tom Cornford, freelance director and lecturer.

Together they have adapted A Winter’s Tale, marking the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth by presenting his “magical, mysterious play as you’ve never seen it before”.

“We’ve received a small sum from the Social Enterprise Fund through the university to do our first show, and as it’s a social enterprise project we’ll be visiting communities, playing a variety of places: arts centres, community centres, villager halls, pubs and theatres,” says Hannah.

“That’s the ideal way for a new company to be started. Theatre should be taken to the people, rather than always putting it in theatres and waiting for people top come to you.”

Given the focus on taking shows to the community, A Winter’s Tale is the ideal starting point, problem play or not.

“It’s a play about contrasting communities: the courtly community going drastically wrong and then the lovely second half where the rural community comes together for a sheep-shearing contest,” says Hannah. “That struck us as a really good story to take out to these places, such as Poppleton Tithe Barn at Nether Poppleton, where the tour starts this weekend.”

Cornford and Davies re-imagine Shakespeare’s story of cruelty, separation, love and forgiveness as a musical play for a quartet of performers – Sarah Louise Davies, Rebecca Beattie, Jonny Neaves and Mark Edwards – sometimes speaking Shakespeare’s words and other times their own, complemented by original compositions by Sarah Louise.

Beginning in the court of Leontes, the jealous king of Sicilia, whose tyrannical cruelty divides his family and blights his kingdom, the play follows the fortunes of his abandoned daughter, Perdita. Rescued by shepherds and wooed by a prince, she is returned to a home she has never known to bring peace and reconciliation.

The actor-musician cast plays The Autolycuns, a four-piece band of players, singers, tricksters and rogues that takes its name from the play’s peddler, Autolycus, and invites you to an evening of story and song, a tale of teeth-grinding spite, sweet soul revival and sheep grazing in green fields.

“It’s often called a problem play because the two halves are so different, but I think it’s a great play, where the first half is a tragedy and the second is a comedy before the reconciliation at the end,” says Hannah.

A Winter’s Tale is the first step in Common Ground’s mission to establish a rolling group of associates.

“We’re calling the company Common Ground because we want to be able to share different practices, with me being a writer and actor; Tom, a stage director, and our third company co-director, Audrie Woodhouse, a specialist in mask theatre,” says Hannah.

“One project next year will be Baba Yaga, a Russian fairytale about a formidable crone who lives in a forest, which Audrie will be performing with masks.”

Hannah is also working on a piece she presented initially as a scratch performance at the first Little Festival of Everything at the Fauconberg Arms in Coxwold in November 2011. “I’m now turning it into an installation audio work called Within This Landscape, working with sound designer Jon Hughes, who did the sound for my play Githa at York Theatre Royal,” she says.

“The new version will be launched at the next Little Fest as a site-specific piece that will involve walking around various sites in Coxwold, and in the style of Slung Low’s theatre shows, such as Blood + Chocolate, the audience will wear headphones.”

• Common Ground Theatre will tour A Winter’s Tale from February 1 to April 4, starting at Poppleton Tithe Barn on Saturday. Visit commongroundtouringtheatre.co.uk for dates, venues and bookings.