Performing Shakespeare

[performingshakespeare]

Those who voted leave, is the triumph you're feeling today really for the country you have 'taken back control' of? Or is it just the triumph of feeling that for once your voice has been heard? What will happen when that high is over? What will happen when your children inherit a country that resembles the war-torn, terrified, financially unstable world your parents worked so hard to escape? What will happen when they loose faith in democracy because they no longer have faith in the people they vote alongside? What will happen when they cannot travel freely, or begin their own businesses, or explore their cultural identities as you did because of your decisions? Will you still feel the same triumph then?

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Shakespeare-inspired art

Here are some exhibitions inspired by Shakespeare’s works around our theatres in Stratford-upon-Avon…

Artist: Soraya Syed (Well Said!)/ Photo by David Tett © RSC

My gracious lord, my father, 

This sleep is sound indeed. 

Henry IV Part Two, Act 4, Scene 5

Artist: Emma Stothard/  Photo by Ida Ballerini © RSC

Garden for Stratfords of the World

Willow sculptures of Bottom and Titania from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, celebrating the Stratfords around the world, including: Stratford, New Zealand; Stratford, Prince Edward Island, Canada; Stratford Victoria, Australia; Stratford, Ontario; Stratford, Connecticut, US.

Swan Cafe Bar Display/ Photo by Sara Beaumont © RSC 

A head for hats 

Leontes’ crown from The Winter’s Tale, 1999, worn by Anthony Sher.

Artist: Johnny Hannah (Well Said!)/ Photo by Ida Ballerini © RSC

It is a manacle of love. I’ll place it 

Upon this fairest prisoner. 

Cymbeline, Act 1, Scene 1

Swan Cafe Bar Display/ Photo by Sara Beaumont © RSC 

The night of ghostly knocking 

Actor Forbes Masson recalled returning home after a pint or two, when “out of the silence came some very loud knocking on the door of the little gatehouse next to the Swan Theatre. Startled, I whispered ‘Who’s there?’ but no one replied.”

[shakespearenews]

To cut or not to cut? RSC and Globe at odds over Shakespeare

As two of Britain’s leading theatres, they are no stranger to rivalry, bitterness and outright war on stage.But the Royal Shakespeare Company and Shakespeare’s Globe are in danger of taking the drama into real life, as leading figures publicly disagree over cuts to original language.

Erica Whyman, deputy director of the RSC, said erasing the language of Shakespeare, as advocated by the director of the Globe, makes her “furious”, branding it unnecessary and condescending to the public.

Emma Rice, artistic director of the Globe, has previously been clear that she will readily cut parts of plays that are too difficult for modern audiences to understand.

[performingshakespeare]

I fully advocate cutting Shakespeare's text, not to simplify for modern audiences but to place emphasis on the themes the particular production aims to tackle.

What do you think?

[performingshakespeare]

Hello from The Barded Ladies! Hello, we are Kat and Charlotte of The Barded Ladies! Having last taken part in the Bristol Shakespeare Festival with A Midsummer Night’s Dream in 2014, we are super e…

[shakespearenews]

Bed tricks and broken women: Shakespeare's guide to love

Every romance is also a bromance, you go to bed never knowing who you’ll wake up with, and the strongest marriage is the Macbeths’ … Shakespeare’s tangled take on love. Illustration: Matthew Richardson

By Jeanette Winterson 

[about bed tricks]

“We have to remember that dark really was dark in those days. Illumination depended on a) the moon, b) a hired urchin with a flare to light your way on the streets, and c) a guttering candle threatened by draughts. In any case, to the men deceived by the bed trick, whether swinish Bertram or the psychopathic puritan Angelo in Measure for Measure, the woman each desires is a conquest only. When we are in love we don’t need a light to know the lineaments of our lover – he or she is printed on our fingertips and retina. But when we’re having sex with someone who means nothing to us, no light could be bright enough for us to recognise them.” 

[argonauticae]

none of this is going in my dissertation but

[shakespearenews]

He That Plays The King

In this installment, Matthew Minnicino discusses gender politics in Shakespeare’s work, and productions of King Lear with women starring in the title role.

In this installment, Matthew Minnicino discusses gender politics in Shakespeare’s work, and productions of King Lear with women starring in the title role.

[shakespearesglobeblog]

Introducing Wonder Women

We’re excited to introduce our new series of music concerts, Wonder Women. Curated by Lauren Laverne and in association with The Pool, the series will showcase both established and up-and-coming artists.

Lauren Laverne on Wonder Women:

I’m absolutely thrilled to be part of this fabulous season, which takes place in one of London’s most beautiful venues. This summer the Globe Theatre and the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse will play host to some of the most compelling women making music today. The bill is adventurous, entertaining and exciting… join us if you can, it’s going to be so much fun!

The series will feature Mercury Prize nominee Róisín Murphy taking over the Globe Theatre for a live music gig - the very first of its kind in that space, using our new sound and lighting equipment - introduced by a DJ set from Lauren Laverne. Wonder Women will also present a set of concerts in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse over the summer, including Camille O'Sullivan, Becca Stevens Band, a triple bill of new talent featuring Billie Marten, Flo Morrissey and Rachel Sermanni, and Gwenno, supported by Pixx, and Ibibio Sound Machine. The Wonder Women series will finish with a screening of Carl Theodor Dreyers’ classic 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc in the Globe Theatre, featuring a brand new score by Adrian Utley (Portishead) and Will Gregory (Goldfrapp).  

Discover more about Wonder Women and book tickets. 

[shakespearenews]

“Hamlet has a wonderful line just before the duel scene, ‘Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes, let be’. And just that little 'let be’ describes so much of this tour. We’re in places for such a short amount of time, that you really have no other option but to try to exist as best you can in the moment you’re in.” Before his final performance in the role of Hamlet, Naeem looks back what he’s learned about his character, himself, and what lines will stick with him.

[hollowcrownfans]

New photos from The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses.

More photos at Far, Far Away site: http://www.farfarawaysite.com/section/hollow/gallery2/gallery1/gallery.htm

[performingshakespeare]

Kate Bryan, Tamara Rojo and Elizabeth Freestone among those joining scheme to help bring on the next generation of women leaders in the arts.

[shakespearesglobeblog]

To be, or not to be: Around the world

When our Globe to Globe Hamlet company set off on a two-year tour with the aim of touring the iconic play to every country in the world, they took this Folio Edition of Hamlet on their travels. The stage managers asked someone in each country they visited to sign the book and inscribe the line “To be, or not to be” in their own language. If someone from each country inscribes their language into the pages, the text is claimed by the world; remembering performance is difficult, but textual keepsakes can last forever. 

Now that the Hamlet company have returned home, so too has their Folio Edition and its wealth of messages. Take a look.

Discover more about our Globe to Globe production of Hamlet.

[shakespearesglobeblog]

The Complete Walk: In photos

This weekend, we joined the crowds on London’s South Bank for The Complete Walk – take a look. 

Images © Pete Le May

Did you join us for The Complete Walk? Share your photos of the day using #TheCompleteWalk 

[globetoglobehamlet]

The rest is silence.

[performingshakespeare]

As a new company performing our debut show we are thrilled with this high opinion of our work. If you are around Bath over the next two days and fancy celebrating Shakespeare's 400th anniversary by seeing some great theatre please come along and join the fun!

[shakespearean]

Australian Dates for Shakespeare Live! From The RSC announced. Click here to find a venue near you in Oz.

Hosted by David Tennant and Catherine Tate, this star-studded show from the BBC and the Royal Shakespeare Company celebrates Shakespeare’s plays and their enduring influence on music, dance, opera, musical theatre and comedy.

Captured live from Stratford-Upon-Avon on the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death, RSC Artistic Director Gregory Doran has assembled an astonishing once-in-a-lifetime cast, including Dame Judi Dench, Sir Ian McKellen, Dame Helen Mirren, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tim Minchin, Rufus Wainwright, John Lithgow, David Suchet, Rory Kinnear, Joseph Fiennes, the cast of Horrible Histories, The Royal Ballet, English National Opera (ENO), Birmingham Royal Ballet, and many more, to perform in a unique tribute to the genius and influence of the world’s greatest playwright and storyteller.

Shakespeare Live! From the RSC will feature numerous theatrical performances, as well as Shakespeare-inspired works spanning the musical genres, including hip-hop, blues, musical theatre, jazz, opera and classical music. This unique gala event will immerse you in the excitement, the drama, the laughter, the tears, the constant reinvention and the utter timelessness of the works of William Shakespeare.

[poolofjello]

"Yet I'll Speak": Othello's Emilia, A Rebuke to Female Silence - The Toast

Caitlin Keefe Moran on the defiant Emilia, who "even in the face of brutality . . . is a rebuke to the idea of female silence."

No, I will speak as liberal as the north: Let heaven and men and devils, let them all, All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.