Professor Julia Briggs

August 19, 2008

Professor Ann Thompson, Head of the School of Humanities at King’s College London and a general editor for the Arden Shakespeare, will present the 2008 Julia Briggs Memorial Lecture. The lecture, entitled Staging Shakespeare’s Plays at the Globe: Then and Now, will be given 6 September at King’s College London.

Most recently, Thompson edited a two-volume edition of Hamlet for the Arden 3 Shakespeare series. She has published extensively in the fields of editing and textual studies, women readers, Shakespeare criticism and Shakespeare’s language.

“We are very grateful to Professor Thompson for agreeing to give this lecture, the first to be given under the British Shakespeare Association’s recently acquired status as a charitable institution,” said Deborah Cartmell of the British Shakespeare Association.

The lecture is named for Professor Julia Briggs, OBE, who died last year from a brain tumor at the age of 63. Briggs was a fellow of Hertford College, Oxford and Chair of the Oxford English Faculty before being appointed Professor of Literature and Women’s Studies at De Montfort University. Her publications include Virginia Woolf: An Inner Life, Edith Nesbit: A Woman of Passion and This Stage Play World: English Literature and Its Background, 1580-1625. She was also known for championing women’s writing and developing the study of children’s literature. Briggs was instrumental in organizing the first British Shakespeare Association Conference in 2005.

The Julia Briggs Memorial Lecture will be presented by the British Shakespeare Association on 6 September, 6-7pm, at the Strand Campus of King’s College London in the Council Room of the Main Building. The lecture is open to the public.

Web Resources:

Map of King’s College London, Strand Campus

British Shakespeare Association

Ann Thompson Bio

The Guardian - Julia Briggs Obituary

The Independent - Julia Briggs Obituary

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Director Peter Brook, Photo: Gilles Abegg

August 19, 2008

British theatre director Peter Brook has been awarded the first International Ibsen Prize. The jury, headed by Norwegian actress and director Liv Ullmann, cited Brook for his, “Successful demonstration that all significant theatre has a unique ability to bring people together, that culture is something everyone can appreciate, and that no group or nation can claim ownership of a work of literature, either in the form of words or as performed on stage.”

The Norwegian government established the International Ibsen Award in 2007. The award includes a cash prize of 2.5 million kroner ($460,000).

Peter Brook was born in London in 1925, to Russian-Jewish parents who immigrated to England in 1914. As a young boy he presented a full-length puppet production of Hamlet for his family. He directed his one and only Ibsen play, The Lady from the Sea, at the age of 19. Two years later he directed his first play, Love’s Labour’s Lost, at the Royal Shakespeare Company

According the to Ibsen Prize jury, “Brook’s ideal is and always has been Shakespeare. Shakespeare’s plays have given him the freedom to move between the outer and the inner world, between fantasy and reality. They transcend the local arena and allow him to pursue his search for universal theatre - a theatre of no particular country but of all countries, cultures, languages and traditions.”

Brook’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 1970 is considered one of the most important Shakespeare productions of the 20^th century. The play featured trapezes, juggling, and circus effects to create a sense of magic and a celebration of the imagination. The production continues to serve as a benchmark for theatre critics and directors alike.

The International Ibsen Prize will be presented August 31 in the port city of Skien where Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen was born.

Web Resources:

IbsenAwards.com

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August 18, 2008

The works of William Shakespeare illustrate the paradox of all dramatic literature: plays are created to be spoken on stage yet they are preserved and most frequently encountered as written works. The printed word allowed Shakespeare, the leading Elizabethan playwright, to become Shakespeare, the greatest writer in the English language.

This summer, The Boston Public Library, in partnership with the University of Massachusetts Boston, is presenting “All the World’s a Page: 400 Years of Shakespeare in Print,” an exhibition that explores the importance of books to the creation and transmission of Shakespeare’s works. The exhibition examines how our understanding and appreciation of Shakespeare is largely dependent on books in which his works have been published, edited, altered, annotated, translated, and illustrated in the centuries since his death. The exhibition also showcases the books that were most vital to the education and inspiration of Shakespeare in creating his plays and poems.

Scott Maisano, a professor of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston and curator of  the exhibition, said, “Historically, I think, Shakespeare has reached wider audiences through the printing of his plays in books than he has through the performances of those plays in the theater.” “If we include translations, comic books, text books, and children’s books, song books, and scholarly books, then we begin to see how malleable and adaptable Shakespeare has been on the page too.” (Read the complete interview with Professor Maisano)

“All the World’s a Page” is the culmination of a graduate course in Shakespeare presented by the Department of English at the University of Massachusetts Boston. The class was held in the Boston Public Library’s Rare Book and Manuscripts Room. Along with learning about Shakespeare in print, students is the class had the opportunity to help curate the exhibition.

The exhibition presents more than two dozen items from the library’s holdings including the Barton Collection of Shakespeariana, one of the great Shakespeare collections in the world. On display are folios, quartos and duodecimos, small, elegant editions of Shakespeare’s poems from the 17th century. Along with these early printed works are a variety of Shakespeare-related books and manuscripts from the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

The exhibition begins with the First Folio of 1623, which has been called the most important book in the history of English literature. Without the First Folio, 18 of Shakespeare’s plays including Julius Caesar, Macbeth and The Tempest would have been lost forever. The First Folio also includes the Droeshout Portrait (shown in the illustration on this page) which has become the most famous and iconic image of the Bard.

“All the World’s a Page” also features some of the early quarto editions of Shakespeare’s plays, published during his lifetime. While these early editions preserved Shakespeare’s works, they also present the problem of what should be considered authentic Shakespeare. The early quarto editions of King Lear and Hamlet, for example, differ significantly from the First Folio’s versions of those same plays.

Another volume, the 1600 quarto of Much Ado About Nothing, gives us a glimpse of Shakespeare’s first draft of the play. Some of the speech prefixes in the margins occasionally substitute the name of one of Shakespeare’s actors, “Kemp,” for the name of the fictional character Dogberry that William Kempe portrayed.

Although some of the quartos are considered corrupt or “bad” version of Shakespeare’s plays, Maisano says they help illustrate the demand for printed editions of his dramatic works from the time they were first written. “There wouldn’t be a market for “pirated” plays-there wouldn’t be any such thing as “memorial reconstructions” or “bad quartos” said Maisano, “if people didn’t enjoy reading Shakespeare.”

While Shakespeare’s contemporaries preserved his works, subsequent generations helped transform Shakespeare into the world’s most famous writer. Earlier editors such as Nicholas Rowe, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope, Lewis Theobold and Edmond Malone began the tradition of correcting, annotating and conflating Shakespeare’s plays. Pope’s multi-volume edition is shown along the latest editorial efforts to publish an authentic version of Shakespeare such as the two-volume Arden edition of Hamlet.

David Garrick, the famous 18th century Shakespearean actor, went so far as to cut the first three acts out of his production of The Winter’s Tale. Yet, in a prologue on display in the exhibition, Garrick stated that removing the three acts was, “To lose no drop of that immortal man.”

Despite some of the more cringe-worthy excesses, Maisano says the editing and re-editing of Shakespeare’s works is part of our ongoing dialogue with the plays. “Just as every performance of Shakespeare on the stage differs from the one before it-even if the performance is by the same company, using the same actors, delivering the same lines-so, too, does each new printing of, say, King Lear or Hamlet add some new dimension and offer some fresh perspective on the work.”

The exhibition also shows how visual artists have envisioned Shakespeare and his works. At the beginning of the 18th century, many editions of Shakespeare’s collected works began containing illustrations of key scenes from each of the plays. By the end of the century, English print publisher Alderman John Boydell gathered 167 paintings of scenes from Shakespeare’s plays by some of the best artists in 18th century England, including Benjamin West, Henry Fuseli, and Joshua Reynolds. The Boydell Shakespeare Gallery was a failure in England but was well received in the young American nation, which was hungry for culture.

Alexander Pope’s 1725 edition even tried to change our perception of Shakespeare’s appearance by substituting the Bard’s likeness with a portrait of King James I. The switch was an attempt to make the author appear more like the prospective buyers for Pope’s six-volume edition.

A final section of the exhibition features the books that Shakespeare would have had in his own library, including the 1560 Geneva Bible, Holinshed’s Chronicles and Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Also on display is the 1620 English translation of Cervantes’ Don Quixote, the possible source of Shakespeare’s lost play Cardenio.

While not diminishing the importance of theatrical performance, Professor Maisano says, “I want visitors to come away with a sense that Shakespeare’s plays “perform” just as well on the page as they do on the stage.” “Ultimately, I hope the exhibit raises as many questions as it answers.  In other words, I hope visitors go home, pull out their own Shakespeare books, and try to figure out what’s unique about them.”

“All the World’s a Page” is on display in the Boston Public Library’s Rare Books Exhibition Room on the 3rd Floor of the McKim Building in Copley Square through September 30.

Web Resources:

Boston Public Library

Complete Interview with Professor Maisano

Complete List of Items on Display

Scott Maisano Bio

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Historically, I think, Shakespeare has reached wider audiences through the printing of his plays in books than he has through the performances of those plays in the theater. If we include translations, comic books, text books, children’s books, song books, and scholarly books, then we begin to see how malleable and adaptable Shakespeare has been on the page too.

For people who have been around the theater all their lives, I can see how books of Shakespeare’s plays might seem like odd and redundant keepsakes. In fact, a few years ago I had a conversation with someone who had a comprehensive knowledge of all of Shakespeare’s works but confessed-actually, she boasted-that she had never read Shakespeare and couldn’t understand why anyone would. “The plays,” she intoned “were meant to be performed.” She probably had very particular things to say about how they should (and shouldn’t) be performed, too. Shakespeare, this person thought, would be abashed and might even take offense if he were to discover someone paying too much attention to his “words, words, words.” These speeches could only come off properly if delivered onstage by Burbages, Barrymores, or Booths. They weren’t supposed to be picked up and read in a paperback or heard in the dialect of the reader’s imagination.

But, for me, Shakespeare has long been the stuff of both paperbacks and the imagination. I didn’t go to the theater as a kid. If someone had asked me what I thought of Hamlet or A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I might have given a million different responses but it never would have occurred to me to speak about costumes or casting or set designs. Until I went to college, Shakespeare was all in the language. And the language was all in books. Now, of course, I can see why this “sola scriptura” approach to Shakespeare might seem unduly pious and austere. A bit like John the Savage running home from “the feelies” to his mouse-nibbled tome of Shakespeare in Huxley’s Brave New World. And naturally I love seeing how actors and directors find the key to unlocking certain difficult passages in the texts and, in doing so, how these performances give new meaning to the plays. Still, if you hand me a reader-friendly copy of one of Shakespeare’s plays, my imagination will do the acting, directing, and unlocking all on its own.

I think that’s why there has always been such a demand for printed copies of the plays. Even during Shakespeare’s lifetime. There wouldn’t be a market for “pirated” plays-there wouldn’t be any such thing as “memorial reconstructions” or “bad quartos”-if people didn’t enjoy reading Shakespeare. Sure, some early interest came from rival acting companies wanting to stage the same material. Some interest, though, came from people who wanted to read the plays for themselves, again and again. Of course the peculiar properties of the book-its size, portability, prefaces, notes, illustrations (or lack thereof), not to mention its version of the title and text-will help determine how people read and what they’re able to come up with.

Shakespeare had little or nothing to do with publishing or printing his plays, so how did books shape his works?

Just as every performance of Shakespeare on the stage differs from the one before it-even if the performance is by the same company, using the same actors, delivering the same lines-so, too, does each new printing of, say, King Lear or Hamlet add some new dimension and offer some fresh perspective on the work. Hamlet and Lear, Shakespeare’s two most sublime masterpieces, are also wonderful illustrations of how print has shaped Shakespeare’s works from the very beginning of his career right up to the present day.

In the case of King Lear, everything from the play’s genre to who gets to speak its final line depends on which book you are reading. The earliest printed quarto edition of the play bills it as a “Chronicle History” whereas the Folio groups it not with the other English History plays but, instead, among the “Tragedies.”

In the quarto edition, Albany delivers the final lines and thus speaks for “we that are young.” In the Folio, these same lines are reassigned to Edgar. The last lines of a Shakespearean tragedy are usually spoken by the character who will then be crowned in the place of the fallen monarch: Malcolm speaks the last fifteen lines in Macbeth and Fortinbras issues a magnanimous eulogy at the end of Hamlet. At issue in the conflicting publications of King Lear, therefore, is nothing less than the future itself: “Who will succeed Lear?”

In the case of Hamlet, the earliest printed edition-the so-called “Bad Quarto” of 1603-is only about half the length of the play as it appears in either the second quarto of 1604/5 or the First Folio of 1623. More troubling still is the fact that some of the most famous lines-including “To be or not to be, that is the question”-do not appear at all, or appear distorted to the point of unintelligibility, in the 1603 quarto. But for all its faults, the Bad Quarto has certainly influenced our understanding of Hamlet’s character. For instance, most of my students (not to mention, of course, many of one’s colleagues) tend to assume that Prince Hamlet is in his teens or, at best, his early twenties. Indeed, students often offer Hamlet’s youth as evidence for why Claudius succeeds his brother to the throne. Hamlet, they presume, isn’t of age to govern Denmark. But the graveyard scene of the Folio text makes clear how old Hamlet is: he’s 30. He is, as we say, a “non-traditional student” at Wittenberg. That’s part of what I love (and frankly prefer) about the Folio edition. But the speech that enables a reader to determine Hamlet’s age is not to be found in the First Quarto edition. Thus, the Quarto does not proscribe the possibility that Hamlet, like Romeo, might be a petulant teenager.

It’s also worth mentioning the way in which the conventional explanation for how the Bad Quarto came into existence uncannily mirrors the plotline of Hamlet itself. The first printing, most scholars believe, derived from an enterprising actor who “pirated” Shakespeare’s popular play by committing as much of it as he could to memory and reporting the lines, to the best of his recollection, to an interested publisher. Of course, the whole tragedy of Hamlet is about committing things to memory and recording them in books so that these things can then be transmitted, faithfully, to future generations. When the Ghost of Hamlet’s father returns from the grave to inform his son that he was murdered, Hamlet actually takes notes. He writes it down in a book. One might suppose that the tale itself, especially coming from a ghost, would be unforgettable. But Hamlet’s not taking any chances. Later, upon the arrival of the players at Elsinore, Hamlet informs the first player: “I heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted; or, if it was, not above once; for the play, I remember, pleased not the million… but it was,” Hamlet insists, “an excellent play.” Indeed, Hamlet himself recalls “one speech in it I chiefly loved.” Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark, then proceeds to quote verbatim a lengthy passage from this play: a play, remember, that has never been performed but which he has nevertheless committed to memory. How has Hamlet been able to memorize entire speeches from a play that was never performed? There are a number of possibilities. One of the best arguments I’ve ever heard came from Bonnie Stewart, an undergraduate at UMass-Boston. (I don’t know if anyone else has made this argument before… it’s certainly possible.) She suggested that Hamlet himself wrote the play. Thus Hamlet is not only an actor and director, like Shakespeare, but an aspiring playwright too. Hamlet remembers the lines of the play because he wrote them after-he’s the author. That kind of rethinking of Hamlet’s character, I would argue, is something you only get from reading (and re-reading) the play closely. Now, even if we refuse to latch onto the tantalizing possibility of Hamlet as a playwright, it’s still possible to answer the question-”how did Hamlet manage to memorize a speech that was never performed?”-in a couple of ways. First, we could observe that Hamlet has been reading a printed copy of that play (the book that he holds in his hand) since his arrival at Elsinore. Or, alternately, we could posit that Hamlet possesses something akin to a photographic memory and thus, like the actor who “pirated” Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark delivers his own “memorial reconstruction” avant la lettre.

In general, how did you select the items?

For purposes of display and presentation, as well as to give visitors a sense of the variety of reading experiences, we wanted books of all shapes and sizes: folios, quartos, octavos, duodecimos, and even an “elephant folio.” We wanted to include books of Shakespeare’s poems in addition to his plays. Naturally, we wanted to include the “big ticket items”: the First Folio, for example, and quite a few early quarto editions. Some quartos proved better than others for underscoring certain bibliographic concepts. The quarto of Much Ado about Nothing, for example, offers a nice, concise (albeit indirect) way to explain what scholars mean by Shakespeare’s “foul papers.” These were the handwritten rough drafts of Shakespeare’s plays. Alas, no such foul papers exist. But one can see a trace of Shakespeare’s first draft in the 1600 quarto of Much Ado because, there, the speech prefixes in the margins occasionally substitute the name of one of Shakespeare’s actors, “Kemp,” for the name of the fictional character, “Dogberry,” that William Kempe portrayed. Thus we have that quarto opened to pages where the reader can see this variation, between “Kemp” and “Dogberry,” and observe for herself how the printers failed to correct Shakespeare’s own inconsistency. Finally, the exhibit includes books from every century since Shakespeare’s birth, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first.

Do all the items in the exhibition come from the Barton collection? If not, what other sources did you use?

Almost all the items in the exhibition come from the Boston Public Library’s Barton Collection, one of the greatest treasures of Shakespeareana in the world. There are a few exceptions. Part of the exhibit showcases books that Shakespeare himself read, books that fired his own dramatic imagination. These include Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Geneva Bible, and Holinshed’s Chronicles. These books did not come from the Barton collection but they belong to the Rare Books and Manuscript Room of the BPL. Finally, we’ve included some modern editions of Shakespeare-the recent two-volume Arden edition of Hamlet, for instance, and Ian Pollock’s Illustrated King Lear-to show how far the traditions of editing and illustrating Shakespeare’s works have come in the three centuries since Nicholas Rowe’s 1709 edition of The Works.

Do you have a favorite item or items in the exhibition?

My personal favorite is the 1609 quarto of Pericles. This supposedly “bad quarto”-another “memorial reconstruction” like the 1603 Hamlet-was a best-seller in the seventeenth century. It was reprinted in 1609 (the year of its first printing) and then reprinted-again and again and again-in 1611, 1619, 1630, and 1635. Obviously, 17th-century readers loved this play. Indeed, I think Pericles is a play that Shakespeare intended to appear on the page. And he wanted it to appear a certain way: old, suspect, and, in certain places, utterly unreadable. The play actually contains the first use of the bibliographic term “title page” in the English language. Shakespeare definitely envisioned this play in print. I won’t bore readers of The Shakespeare Post with all the details but, if they’re interested, they can read more in my article, “Shakespeare’s Dead Sea Scroll: On the Apocryphal Appearance of Pericles” in the 2007 Shakespeare Yearbook.

What do you want visitors to learn from viewing this exhibition?

I want visitors to come away with a sense that Shakespeare’s plays “perform” just as well on the page as they do on the stage. In fact, Shakespeare’s plays have been in demand on the page just as much as they have been on demand on the stage ever since Shakespeare made a name for himself. Ultimately, I hope the exhibit raises as many questions as it answers. In other words, I hope visitors go home, pull out their own Shakespeare books, and try to figure out what’s unique about them. Do the books contain prefaces, glossaries, illustrations? What about a portrait of Shakespeare or a brief biography? In what ways does this editorial apparatus ‘set the stage’ for reading? How are passages that scholars and editors have squabbled over for centuries rendered on the page? Are there footnotes to acknowledge that the passage in question might have been printed differently in earlier editions? What difference do a few words make to one’s understanding and appreciation of a scene or character? Finally, are there traces-marginalia, doodles, or dogeared pages-of previous readers’ imaginative interactions with the book?

Since this exhibition is the culmination of a graduate course, did your students play any role in choosing the items?

Absolutely. All of the most interesting and obscure-in other words, the least obvious-books were chosen by the students Indeed, the students deserve to be recognized for their creative contributions. There names are: Ceylan Akturk, Neval Avci, Kristen Bennett, Trevor Doherty, Jacqueline Donnelly, Shelley Karren, Hye Su Park, and Taravat Zandieh.

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William Shakespeare. Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. Published according to the True Originall Copies. London: 1623. Rare Books and Manuscript Room. Barton Collection. G. 174.1

William Shakespeare. A Midsommer nights dreame. London: 1600. Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  Barton Collection. G. 176.22

William Shakespeare. The most excellent Historie of the Merchant of Venice. London: 1600.  Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  Barton Collection.  G. 176.16

William Shakespeare.  The Tragedie of King Richard the Second. London: 1598. Rare Books and Manuscript Room.Barton Collection. G. 176.32

William Shakespeare.  The Chronicle History of Henry the Fift. London: 1608 [1619].  Rare Books and Manuscript Room.Barton Collection. G. 176.7

William Shakespeare. True Chronicle Historie of the life and death ofKing Lear and his three Daughters. London: 1608. Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  Barton Collection. G. 176.13

William Shakespeare. The Tragedy of Hamlet Prince of Denmark. London: 1611. Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  Barton Collection. G. 176.1

William Shakespeare. Much Adoe about Nothing. London: 1600.Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  Barton Collection. G. 176.24

William Shakespeare. The Late, And much admired Play, Called Pericles, Prince of Tyre. London: 1609.Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  Barton Collection. G. 176.27

Poems: Written by Wil. Shake-speare. Gent.  London: 1640. Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  Barton Collection. G. 176.61

Cupid’s Cabinet Vnlock’t, or, the accademy of complements. Odes, epigrams, songs, and sonnets, poesies, presentations, congratulations, ejaculations, rhapsodies, etc…By W. Shakespear. London: c.1640.Rare Books and Manuscript Room. Barton Collection. G. 176.62

William Shakespeare. Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. The Third Impression. London: 1664. Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  Barton Collection.  G. 174.5

Alexander Pope, editor. The Works of Shakespear. In 6 volumes. Collated and corrected by the former editions. London: 1725. Rare Books and Manuscript Room. Barton Collection. G. 4591.1

David Garrick. Prologue to The Winter’s Tale. Manuscript. 1756. Rare Books and Manuscript Room. Barton Collection. No. 12 in **G. 60a.17

The Riverside Shakespeare, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Houghton Mifflin, 1974).

William Shakespeare: A Textual Companion, eds. Gary Taylor and Stanley Wells (W.W. Norton, 1997).

The Norton Shakespeare, based on the Oxford Edition, 2nd Edition, ed. Stephen Greenblatt et. al. (Norton 2008).

The Arden Shakespeare Hamlet, Q1, Q2, and F versions, eds. Ann Thompson and Neil Taylor (Arden, 2006).

Zachariah Jackson. Shakespeare’s genius justified: being restorations and illustrations of seven hundred passages in Shakespeare’s plays: which have afforded abundant scope for critical animadversion; and hereto held at defiance the penetration of all Shakespeare’s commentators. London: 1819.  Rare Books and Manuscript Room. Barton Collection. G. 3933.13

Thomas Hanmer, editor. The Works of Shakespear. In 6 v., Adorned with sculptures. 2nd edition. Volume III. Oxford: 1770-1. Rare Books and Manuscript Room. Barton Collection. G. 4020.13

Songs of Shakespeare. Illustrated by the Etching Club. London: 1843. Rare Books and Manuscript Room. Barton Collection. G. 50.15.

William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Illustrated by Ian Pollack. (Can of Worms Enterprisers and Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers: 1984).

Publius Ovidius Naso. The Metamorphoses. Venice: 1513. Rare Books and Manuscript Room.  fG. 402.64

Holy Bible.  Geneva: 1560.  Rare Books and Manuscript Room.

Raphael Holinshed. The Chronicles of England. London: 1587 Rare Books and Manuscript Room. DA 130.H732

Miguel de Cervantes.  History of the Valorous and Witty Knight Errant, Don Quichote of the Mancha. 2 vols. Trans. T. Shelton.  London: 1620. Rare Books and Manuscript Room. G3356.2

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Stratford Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Des McAnuff

August 18, 2008

The Stratford Shakespeare Festival has announced a varied lineup for its 2009 season. Artistic Director Des McAnuff has selected four plays from the Elizabethan-Jacobean period, four other classics, and three contemporary Canadian plays, along with two musicals based on classical works.

“The 2009 season reflects our vision of the Stratford dramatic landscape as a series of concentric circles,” said McAnuff. “Centre stage is Shakespeare, surrounded by his contemporaries. The next circle includes the great works of classical drama from other periods, many of which either influenced Shakespeare or were influenced by him. Then we have that great innovation of the 20^th century, musical theatre, enduring classics in their own right. The final circle of repertoire comprises contemporary works and living playwrights.”

From the Elizabethan-Jacobean period, the Festival will be presenting the following plays for 2009, fulfilling its commitment to produce four or five plays from the Shakespearean period every season:

• Macbeth by William Shakespeare, at the Festival Theatre, Directed by Des McAnuff

• A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, at the Festival Theatre, Directed by David Grindley

• Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare at the Avon Theatre, Directed by James MacDonald

• Bartholomew Fair by Ben Jonson, at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Directed by Antoni Cimolino

Reflecting on the choice of Bartholomew Fair, McAnuff said, “Shakespeare does not stand alone.” “He is certainly our greatest playwright but to truly know his work, it is vital to explore the plays of his contemporaries, which is why we present Ben Jonson’s rollicking city comedy Bartholomew Fair. In the coming seasons we hope to continue expanding our Elizabethan-Jacobean repertoire and produce works by Marlowe, Kidd, Middleton and the other great playwrights from Shakespeare’s scene.”

Other classics in the 2009 season are:

• Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess, at the Festival Theatre, Directed by Donna Feore

• The Three Sisters by Anton Chekhov, at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Directed by Martha Henry

• The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde, at the Avon Theatre, Directed by Brian Bedford

And a companion piece

Ever Yours, Oscar, a one-man performance compiled by Peter Wylde from the letters of Oscar Wilde, at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Directed by and featuring Brian Bedford

• Phèdre by Jean Racine, in a new translation by Timberlake Wertenbaker (World première), at the Tom Patterson Theatre, Directed by Carey Perloff

The festival will also be presenting an all-Canadian season at the Studio Theatre, including a new play by Morris Panych:

• The Trespassers by Morris Panych (World première), Directed by Morris Panych

• Zastrozzi by George F. Walker, Directed by Jennifer Tarver

• Rice Boy by Sunil Kuruvilla

The musicals, previously announced, are inspired by works by Shakespeare and the Roman playwright Plautus.

• West Side Story based on a conception of Jerome Robbins, at the Festival Theatre.

Book by Arthur Laurents, Music by Leonard Bernstein. Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Directed by Gary Griffin, Choreographed by Sergio Trujillo

• A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, at the Avon Theatre

Book by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart. Music and Lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, Directed by Des McAnuff, Choreographed by Wayne Cilento

The Festival also announced a series of commissions from three leading Canadian playwrights, John Mighton, Judith Thompson and George F. Walker. A fourth commission will be announced at a later date, along with titles and details of these projects. In addition, American playwright and screenwriter Aaron Sorkin has been commissioned to adapt and translate a classic play. All of these commissions will be considered for production in upcoming seasons.

“I’m delighted that the 2009 season will bring together many of the Festival’s favourite artists as well as some of the finest new talent,” says Antoni Cimolino, the Festival’s general director. “We have created a playbill that builds on the excellent work accomplished in the 2008 season and positions the Festival well for the future.”

The 2009 season will begin in mid-April and run through October at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Ontario, Canada.

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RSC Open Day - Costume tour

August 16, 2008

The Royal Shakespeare Company is once again opening its doors to the public for its annual Open Day in Stratford-upon-Avon.

Open Day features a variety of free and paid-entry events designed to give visitors a behind-the-scenes look at what it takes to bring a production to life. The open house will feature talks with RSC actors and directors and hands-on sessions about costumes, lighting and sound, make-up, wigs, armory and stage fighting.

Activities will take place at several venues around the town, including the RSC’s Courtyard Theatre, the theatre gardens, The Shakespeare Institute, Holy Trinity Church and the RSC workshops at Timothy’s Bridge Road.

Mark Ball, Head of RSC Events and Exhibitions, said, “The RSC’s annual Open Day has firmly established itself as a brilliant opportunity for everyone to interact with those people who help bring a play alive. As well as onstage talks and demonstrations, you’ll be able to tour our scenic workshops, listen to RSC musicians, see how we create realistic fight scenes, be the star in your own poster and try on fake wounds and scars.”

One of the highlights of the day will be a talk by the stars of the RSC’s sold out production of Hamlet, Oliver Ford Davies, Patrick Stewart and David Tennant. The three men will discuss their experiences of working at the RSC and with Shakespeare’s works.

Later, Jonathan Bate, co-editor of the RSC Complete Works, and RSC Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran will look at how an editor’s decision can affect interpretive choices in the rehearsal room and performance.

Over at Holy Trinity Church where Shakespeare is buried, the RSC Band and Choir will perform a selection of recently discovered music from the theatre company’s archives. Following the performance, Reverend Martin Gorick will discuss the role the Holy Trinity Church had in Shakespeare’s life and how it may have influenced his work.

Russell Kane's Fakespeare

Award-winning stand-up comedian, Russell Kane, will end Open Day with a performance of his show Fakespeare - the Lamentable Tragedie of Yate’s Wine Lodge.

Other events throughout the day include a Shakespearean dancing competition and The Great Shakespeare Quiz. Visitors will also have the chance to find out the latest on the transformation of the Royal Shakespeare Theatre and tour the construction site.

The RSC Open Day will be held Sunday, 31 August.

For a full list of events, times, venues and costs visit www.rsc.org.uk/openday or call the RSC Ticket Hotline on 0844 800 1110.

Tickets for paid-entry events can be purchased in advance, whereas tickets for free events will be available on the day.

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Kristin Chenoweth , Photo: Julie Cohen

August 15, 2008

Tony Award winning actor Kristin Chenoweth will host an upcoming television documentary that goes behind the scenes of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s recent production of Twelfth Night. Shakespeare on the Hudson follows the actors and creative team through the real-life, off-stage drama of the production from auditions and call backs to the final moments backstage before the performance begins.

Shakespeare on the Hudson premieres September 18 on the American public television station Thirteen/WNET in New York.

Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Hudson Valley at Boscobel, a stately 19th-century estate, the festival brings together a group of accomplished actors each summer to perform Shakespeare’s masterpieces. The documentary intersperses interviews with cast members with behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage to examine the challenges of staging a first-rate production that is true to the original work but still accessible and relevant to a modern audience.

The documentary highlights the story of veteran actress Maia Guest, who lands the part of Feste during auditions but worries whether she can pull it off - an anxiety that’s amplified because she is also the director’s wife. The show also follows a pair of rookie actors from Minnesota who struggle to prove they have what it takes to perform Shakespeare before their fellow cast mates, skeptical New York critics and theater-goers.

Gabra Zackman (left) and Wesley Mann in the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Production of Twelfth Night, Photo: William Marsh

A broadcast of the complete Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night will be shown immediately after the documentary.

Host Kristin Chenoweth is best known to many for her work as Glinda in the hit Broadway musical Wicked. Chenoweth won a Tony Award for her performance as Sally Brown in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

Thirteen/WNET is one of the key program providers for public television in America with such series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and Charlie Rose.

Shakespeare on the Hudson premieres Thursday, September 18 at 8 p.m. on Thirteen/WNET in New York. Twelfth Night: The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival will immediately follow at 9 p.m.
WLIW in New York will broadcast Twelfth Night: The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival on Friday, September 26 at 9 p.m. and Shakespeare on the Hudson at 11 p.m. the same evening.

Web Resources:

Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

Video of Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night

Thirteen/WNET

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The footings of The Theatre © Museum of London Archaeology

August 13, 2008

The Shakespeare Post is proud to introduce Lend Me Your Ears, a new podcast series created exclusively for the Post. Lend Me Your Earswill feature interviews with actors, directors, scholars, historians, educators and anyone else making news in the world of Shakespearean performance and research.

For the inaugural podcast, Jo Lyon, senior archaeologist for the Museum of London Archaeology, discusses the discovery of The Theatre in London. Lyon led the team that unearthed the foundations of the playhouse earlier this summer.

Lyon talks about how the discovery was made, what researchers have learned from the excavation, and what she hopes to find when she returns to the site later in the year.

Use the embedded player to listen to the podcast.

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