Holy City Shakespeare

08/27/2025

10/23/2024

Worth sharing again, more than 8 years later.

Dr. Who star David Tennant is also a bonafide Shakespearean actor, so Stephen has a few questions for him. No, not the Hamlet question. "Subscribe To ""The L...

09/27/2024

Dame Maggie Smith has died at 89. She was a prolific actor on stage and screen, and she played most of the major Shakespeare female roles to great acclaim. She made her professional debut onstage as Viola in Twelfth Night. Her breakthrough film role was Desdemona in Othello alongside Laurence Olivier and Michael Gambon. Other screen roles included the Duchess of York with Ian McKellan's Richard III, Portia in The Merchant of Venice for the BBC, and Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing. Other stage roles included Cleopatra in Anthony and Cleopatra, Queen Elizabeth in Richard III, and Lady Macbeth in Macbeth.

Dame Maggie Smith was a British actress who has worked in theatre, television, and film. She made her professional theatre debut in 1956 playing Viola in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night at the Oxford Playhouse. She made her Broadway debut in musical r***e New Faces of 1956 (1956). Smith excelled...

09/05/2024

Hall’s Croft, one of the last complete examples of Jacobean architecture, dates back to 1613.

Exclusive: Ken Ludwig gives Shakespeare Birthplace Trust largest private donation in its 177-year history

05/25/2024

The review's opinion of the acting is actually much better than the headline leads one to believe. The author has more of a problem with Lloyd's direction and sees both nothing new and an imposition of coolness to what should be a heart rending experience.

Hot on the heels of his triumphant ‘Sunset Boulevard’ revival, Jamie Lloyd has recruited one of the biggest young stars in Hollywood to take on Shakespeare – but this stripped back production needs more passion and energy to make it stand out

05/23/2024

This article is wonderfully insightful, and simplification of this issue is absurd. Here's why.

Disabled actors (as British parlance refers to them at the moment) should obviously be given the same opportunities as all other actors, and space should be consciously made for them by theatres, not just by accident.

That said, every character in Shakespeare except some "Moors' are white, but we don't usually cast them by their race: we cast them as people. Sometimes race is not ignored but explored thematically, and casting is used to touch on particulay modern social situations, even though Shakespeare never could have imagined them. Further, sometimes character gender is switched or ignored, and a project gains another potential purpose. For heaven's sake, I've played the male lead in "Taming of the Shrew" opposite Carole Lynn Moore Strickland's fantastic Kate, and yes, I kissed her unironically at the end. More to the point, we would never agree that a "disabled" actor couldn't play an "able bodied" character, would we?

In the case of Richard III, The idea that we must find an actor "disabled" in the same manner as the character ridiculous for 2 reasons. First, Shakespeare's scripted notions about and possible details of Richard's deformity are sometimes specific, other times vague, and always fictional. Second, the historical British King this character is based on we now know had scoliosis. Which deformities must we adhere to and why? IS there a male actor with scoliosis who is good for the part? Or is that the "correct" disability?

Arthur Hughes, an actor who the RSC recognized was wonderfully up for the part of Richard III, doesn't have scoliosis, though he was born with radial dysplasia (a shortened right arm). And, as he puts it, “people don't make the sign of the cross at me when I walk down Queens Road in Peckham.” The stars aligned for the production in which he performed, which (as most Richard III productions do) explored how "deformity" both hindered and helped that character' life, while also recognizing the story is not just about a deformity. It's about ambition and many other things. But honestly, it wasn't the best Richard III I've ever seen. Thankfully, the talented Hughes' continued career has been a success and does not constantly focus on his dysplasia, which we can all agree would be ridiculous.

I don't think this controversy is an example of social consciousness going too far, but the question and potential answers are complex, not simple. It's good too have these conversations, and I thank you for reading my opinions on the matter. - Laura Rose

A production at the Shakespeare’s Globe theater faced criticism because a nondisabled actor plays the scheming king. But disputes like these miss the point, our critic writes.

04/23/2024

Here is a much better way to celebrate today than the New York Times' stupid article. Watch this real time premiere of Shakespeare being performed in languages around the world, including sign language.

On 23 April 2024, in commemoration of the English Language Day 2024 at the United Nations, the UN Movie Society of the United Nations Staff Recreation Counci...

04/23/2024

Thanks a lot, Elizabeth Winkler and New York Times. Let's attack one of the last bastions of the arts on the planet, shall we? My letter to the editor in response is as follows:

When I was a teen in 1984, my mother and father brought me to Stratford-upon-Avon during a trip to Europe. At the Royal Shakespeare Theater, I saw Antony Sher play the charismatic villain Richard III. I was captivated for life. Ever since, I have devoted all my study, my endeavors in theatre, my love and labor, to sharing the magic and thrills of Shakespeare performance with audiences, students, and academics. I hold an MA in Shakespeare Studies from the Shakespeare Institute (my thesis supervisor was the esteemed Prof Stanley Wells), a part of the British University of Birmingham located in this Stratford, and I am nearly finished with a doctorate there (my current thesis supervisor is now Institute Director Prof Michael Dobson). The point of Stratford is this incredible, public supported enterprise to bring the best and brightest theatre practitioners and lovers of Shakespeare, youth who don't know yet what all the fuss is about, and the old whose lives have yielded the gifts of a richer, more thoroughly examined experience because of these plays. Are there silly tourist shops in Stratford? Yes. But the place is not a shrine to a make-believe god. It, coupled with London, is a haven where anyone who knows how deeply these plays touch souls to share them with others, to fete them and those who perpetuate their bright star for everyone who wants to know and love art. Shame on you for reducing this place, already struggling in the wake of the pandemic, to this cynical story.

Every year, millions flock to Stratford-upon-Avon, England, to visit the house known as Shakespeare’s Birthplace. But was he really born there? A whole industry depends on it.

02/18/2024

❤️ VOLUNTEER SHAKESPEARE LOVER NEEDED: We are in search of a web designer with professional or advanced amateur skills to update and repost our website. We have all necessary photos, graphics, links, and info saved, plus our previous site's html files. I will happily write a reference letter or review for anyone who helps us get things in order! Thank you, Charleston! ❤️

11/08/2023

The tantalizing story of, possibly, one more play...

To celebrate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's First Folio, BBC Future investigates a mysterious vanishing – a play that has been missing for centuries.

11/16/2022

Wouldn't the world be left wanting if Shakespeare was "edited" too much?