This is Michelle Pfeiffer's first attempt at Shakespeare since her debut as an actress in a New York stage production of Twelfth Night.
Although it appears to be an idyllic location, the shoot was anything but. Five weeks of filming almost completely at night quickly took its toll on an increasingly unhinged cast and crew, whilst all the lush greenery ultimately became poisonous (the studio set was in an aircraft-sized hangar where the plants all started decaying, releasing all sorts of noxious gases into the atmosphere).
Calista Flockhart and Anna Friel's mud fight had to be filmed twice. It took four hours to prep and clean the actresses for a second take.
Take a look at what some of the other performers are rehearsing while the Mechanicals are waiting for word from the Duke. One group of players are rehearsing Sophocles' Oedipus Rex and another pair of players are rehearsing a scene from William Shakespeare's play Othello.
The action of the play is transplanted from Athens, Greece to the fictional Italian city of Monte Athena.