David Tennant as Hamlet, Photo: RSC

September 27, 2008

“In a highly unusual step, the RSC is tracing sellers advertising tickets for the sold-out run on online auction sites. The sellers receive a sternly worded letter informing them that re-selling a ticket will render it void.The company has also “regretfully” rescinded Ticketmaster’s allocation for all RSC performances after discovering that its affiliate auction site, getmein.com, shows Hamlet tickets selling for as much as £660 each.”

Letters sent to those re-selling their tickets read: “We have noticed that tickets you have recently purchased for a performance have been offered for sale on [an] internet website. We should at this point draw your attention to the Terms and Conditions of sale printed on the reverse of all tickets. We clearly state that ‘Reselling this ticket for profit or commercial gain makes it void’. You should be aware that reselling your tickets may result in the buyer being refused entry to the theatre.”

Source: The Telegraph

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A true copy of the journal of the High Court of Justice, for the tryal of K. Charles I. London, 1684

September 24, 2008

At a time when the future of newspapers is uncertain, a new exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library is examining the birth and development of newspapers in early modern England and colonial America. Breaking News: Renaissance Journalism and the Birth of the Newspaper opens at the Folger September 25 and runs through January 31, 2009.

The first newspaper, a European import, arrived in England in 1620. Recent innovations in printing technology and the creation of a new class of professional journalists made newspapers possible. An information-hungry public created the demand and by mid-century, England had become an innovator in news form and content.

Readers eagerly snapped up reports on topics that are still mainstays of today’s presses: international conflicts, natural disasters, crime, and news of the exotic and strange. Newspapers adopted many format conventions still seen today, including print columns, headlines, serialization, and the arrangement of stories by importance rather than chronology. By the turn of the eighteenth century, London had multiple weeklies as well as a daily newspaper.

The exhibition explores the complex relationship between emerging journalists and the English government, which changed from a monarchy to a commonwealth and back during the period covered by the exhibition. The unstable political conditions created opportunities for writers to play significant roles in shaping public opinion.

“There were few techniques for manipulating the press available today which were not available in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,” explains curator Jason Peacey.

“Politicians recognized that, with a wide range of propaganda options at their disposal, their key task was to ensure that they deployed the right one in order to communicate with the right audience at the right time.”

Along with the story of the birth of the newspaper from its arrival in England to early stirrings of American journalism, Breaking News tells the stories of those who wrote, sold, and read the news during this pivotal period.

Items on display range from a letter detailing the death of Sir Walter Raleigh to the only remaining copy of the first American newspaper, Boston’s Publick Occurrences, which was shut down after just one issue. The paper met a quick end when some of the remarks in the paper displeased the governor.

Also on display is a replica of a printing press designed and built by engineering students from Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. The press offers viewers a look at the equipment used by early newspaper publishers.

Breaking News: Renaissance Journalism and the Birth of the Newspaper runs from September 25, 2008 through January 31, 2009 in the Folger’s Great Hall. Admission is free.

Web Resources:
Breaking News: Renaissance Journalism and the Birth of the Newspaper website
Audio Tour of Breaking News: Renaissance Journalism and the Birth of the Newspaper
Bucknell Gutenberg-style press heads to nation’s capital

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The following is taken from the RSC press release.

Productions on the thrust stage

In 2009, at The Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd directs Shakespeare’s romantic comedy As You Like It for the first time. One of Shakespeare’s great comedies, As You Like It subverts the traditional rules of romance, confusing gender roles, nature and politics in a play that reflects on how bewildering yet utterly pleasurable life can be. The production will be designed by Tom Piper.

Newly appointed Associate Director, David Farr, directs Shakespeare’s late play about jealousy, loss and redemption, The Winter’s Tale, in which Shakespeare strips away the trappings of a man’s success in a bewitchingly beautiful exploration of what constitutes true happiness. David returns to the RSC following his productions of Coriolanus and Julius Caesar in 2003/4 which performed in the Swan Theatre before touring nationally and in London. He was Artistic Director of the Lyric Hammersmith from 2005 – 2008 and prior to this was Joint Artistic Director of Bristol Old Vic from 2002 – 2005.

Lucy Bailey makes her RSC directing debut with a production of Julius Caesar, a masterpiece of political power-play and manipulation which examines the conflict between one man’s ambition and the good of the state. Lucy’s previous productions include Timon of Athens and Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare’s Globe, as well as work with the National Theatre, Chichester Festival Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse, Hampstead Theatre and the West End.

In the second year of the ensemble in 2010, the same ensemble of actors will appear in Rupert Goold’s first RSC production as RSC Associate Director - Romeo and Juliet.

In the same season David Farr will direct King Lear; Michael Boyd will direct Antony and Cleopatra and Gregory Doran will direct a new stage version of Malory’s Morte D’Arthur by Mike Poulton

As part of this wide range of new commissions, some will explore the connections between the classical repertoire and new forms of playwriting. Ben Power, Literary Associate at Headlong Theatre, is under commission to do two radical re-workings of classic material. His first, A Tender Thing, will be produced in 2009. Mike Poulton returns with a new version of the original source material of the King Arthur legend.

A Tender Thing. Inspired by and entirely composed of material drawn from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, Ben Power’s A Tender Thing is a re-imagining of a masterpiece. An elderly couple cling to each other as time and life ebb from them in this intimate account of brutal mortality. Fate and hope, love and loss are explored as Shakespeare’s words are given a powerful new theatrical context.

Morte D’Arthur. Inspired by Sir Thomas Malory’s epic 15th Century Arthurian legend, Mike Poulton achieves a bold and accessible re-telling of the myth at the heart of English culture. Re-uniting the team that created The Canterbury Tales, Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran will direct.
Young People’s Shakespeare
The ‘See it Live’ principles behind the RSC’s manifesto Stand Up For Shakespeare are brought to life in the Young People’s Shakespeare programme.
The idea behind Young People’s Shakespeare is to create accessible productions, condensed to the bare essentials, which will bring the power of seeing a live, innovative production of Shakespeare to very young audiences around the country. These shows are the ideal introduction to both the play, and Shakespeare in performance.

This year, primary school children across the country will have the opportunity to see a stripped down version of The Comedy of Errors, created in association with acclaimed theatre company Told by an Idiot, and directed by Paul Hunter. For the first time, the Young People’s Shakespeare production can also be seen at The Courtyard Theatre for five performances during the season, giving more families and schools the chance to experience it in our Stratford home.
RSC on Tour

The Tempest, in association with South Africa’s Baxter Theatre Centre, will tour the UK in the Spring of 2009. Using its South African roots as a basis for the production’s concept and with native South Africans Antony Sher and John Kani playing Prospero and Caliban respectively, Janice Honeyman directs a production which draws on the music, dance and ritual of Africa and is set against a colourful landscape that is vast, beautiful and powerful. Janice will also create a specially adapted version of The Tempest for younger audiences.

The production will open in Cape Town, before performing at The Courtyard Theatre and then embarking on tour dates at Richmond, Leeds, Bath, Nottingham and Sheffield.

Othello, directed by newly appointed RSC Associate Artist Kathryn Hunter, opens in January next year at Warwick Arts Centre, before touring the UK and making a welcome return for the RSC to the Hackney Empire as well as Oxford, Liverpool, and Northern Stage in Newcastle.

Patrice Naiambana returns to the RSC, taking the title role after spending the last 2 years with the Histories Ensemble. Iago will be played by Michael Gould with Natalia Tena playing Desdemona in her RSC debut.
New Work at the RSC

Boyd commits to his long-cherished desire to balance new plays alongside Shakespeare.

The New Work team at the RSC has been consolidated and expanded. With the addition of new Literary Manager Pippa Ellis joining Associate Director Roxana Silbert, Literary Associate Anthony Neilson, and Company Dramaturg Jeanie O’Hare, the team is complete.

Tarell Alvin McCraney will join the Company as the new RSC/Warwick International Playwright in Residence. One of the most gifted writers of his generation, his most recent production in the UK, The Brothers Size (ATC/Young Vic), part of a trilogy of Brother/Sister plays, was nominated for the 2008 Olivier Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Affiliate Theatre. Another part of the trilogy, In the Red and Brown Water will open in October 2008 at the Young Vic, running alongside the returning production of The Brothers Size. His extraordinary play Wig Out! will open at the Royal Court in November 2008, directed by Dominic Cooke.

Tarell will be in the RSC rehearsal rooms embedded with the ensemble acting company creating and developing new work and, as part of this work, he will write a new commissioned play for the company. His post is funded by the CAPITAL Centre at Warwick University and he will teach there as part of his residency.

RSC Associate Director Roxana Silbert directs Rona Munro’s play Little Eagles. Part of a trilogy covering the years from Sputnik to the Apollo Moon landings and beyond, this first instalment charts the Soviet contribution to the space race, from the dark days of the Gulag to the aftermath of the first triumphant flight of Yuri Gagarin. Epic in scale and rich with historical detail, Little Eagles is a bold exploration of a time when one man’s dream became a reality and the world changed forever. The play is a new RSC commission, and was developed in association with Davidson College in the US.

The RSC launches a strand of work which has been 3 years in the planning. Other Russia is an investigation into the dramatic life of the countries that made up the former Soviet Union. Looking deeply into the theatrical tradition that rivals our own, we will produce a dynamic mix of classics and brand new plays. The season begins with two large-scale new commissions that will be premiered on The Courtyard Theatre stage.

In 2009:

The Grain Store by Natal’ia Vorozhbit, directed by Michael Boyd, with new Artistic Associate Kathryn Hunter in the cast. An urgent and epic account of the Ukrainian famine in the 1930s.

The Drunks by Mikhail and Vyacheslav Durnenkov. A dark and freewheeling epic about a soldier returning from Chechnya to his home town as a reluctant war hero. Directed by RSC Literary Associate Anthony Neilson.

Other Russia continues with two further premieres.

In 2011:

Little Eagles by Rona Munro. A sweeping history play about the 1960s space race between USSR and USA. The first part of her trilogy looks at idealism against a Cold War backdrop. Directed by RSC Associate Director Roxana Silbert.

Silence. A new collaboration with Filter directed by RSC Associate Director David Farr. Silence follows a disenchanted British journalist travelling to Moscow to meet a controversial theatre-maker. The piece is an exploration of Russia’s history of artistic suppression, asking what it means to live in a closely monitored but vitally alive state. Are you truly free to speak out or do you remain silent? After their successful collaboration on the visually stunning Water at Lyric Hammersmith in 2007, Filter once again team up with David Farr to create a multi-sensory narrative about artists and their voices.

Michael Boyd said, “We launch Other Russia - a new exploration of Russia and the former Soviet Union countries, drawing on the great Russian theatre tradition with some of Eastern Europe’s most inspirational new writers. I am looking forward to directing The Grain Store on the main stage at The Courtyard Theatre.

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The International Shakespeare Association (ISA) has extended the deadline to submit proposals for papers for the Ninth World Shakespeare Congress from 30 November 2008 until 28 February 2009. The congress will be held 17 - 22 July 2011 in Prague, Czech Republic. Prague’s Charles University, founded in 1348 by Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, will serve as host.

According to the organizers, “Prague, where Shakespeare’s plays were most probably performed during his lifetime, provides the opportunity to approach Shakespeare’s theatre in the context of cultural and political relations between Elizabethan and Jacobean England and Central Europe under the Habsburg Emperor Rudolph II and later on the eve of the Thirty Years’ War.”

“Delegates will be able to trace the steps of Dr. John Dee, Edward Kelley, Edmund Campion, and Elizabeth Weston as they tour the Baroque theatres and Rosenberg castles of South Bohemia.”

The theme of the congress is Renaissance Shakespeare/Shakespeare Renaissances. Participants are encouraged to interpret the theme in terms of geography, history and culture and to consider text and performance in a full range of media. The plenary lectures, seminar, workshop and short paper programs along with the supporting cultural, social, and community activities will all reflect the theme.

Proposals should be as detailed as possible and include a rationale along with a list of problems or questions that the seminar, workshop or short paper (panel) session seeks to explore. Brief academic biographies of the proposed leaders and contributors of short papers should be included in the proposal.

Staying true to its name, the International Shakespeare Association will give preference to proposals that reflect the international nature of the World Congress. The association also encourages geographical diversity in seminar, workshop and panel leadership.

All proposals will be reviewed by members of the ISA Programme Committee. Anyone submitting a proposal should make sure that his or her ISA membership is current.

Proposals should be sent to Dr. Nick Walton, ISA Secretary, preferably by email at isa@shakespeare.org.uk. Proposals can also be sent by postal service to: The Shakespeare Centre, Henley Street, Stratford-Upon-Avon, Warwickshire, CV37 6QW, United Kingdom. All proposals are due by 28 February 2009.

The International Shakespeare Association was formed in 1974 to offer opportunities for individuals and institutions to join together to further the knowledge of Shakespeare throughout the world. The ISA is headquartered at the Shakespeare Centre in Stratford-upon-Avon.

This is at least the second time the deadline has been extended. Earlier this summer, the deadline was extended from 30 June to 30 November 2008. No reason for the new deadline was given in the revised call for papers.

Web Resources:

The International Shakespeare Association Ninth World Shakespeare Congress - Revised Call For Papers

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Skye Brandon: From Saskatchewan, Skye has worked throughout the Prairies. Credits include: The Pillowman, Fat Pig (Wild Side Productions); Henry IV Part One, The Tempest, The Taming of the Shrew (Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan); and Twelfth Night (Globe Theatre). Skye received his BFA Honours from the University of Saskatchewan and is the artistic director of Last Exit Theatre in Saskatoon.

Jennifer Paterson: Jennifer is from Vancouver, where she trained at Studio 58. She received the Gordon Armstrong Playwright’s rent award for her play The First Fifteen Minutes (The Polliwog Factory). She has also been nominated for two Jessie awards and received a statue for her performance in Speed (Green Thumb Theatre). Her performance in Joan MacLeod’s one-woman show The Shape of a Girl, produced by Green Thumb Theatre, was very well received in New York, where it played in 2005.

Christopher Prentice: Christopher is the Conservatory’s Chicago Fellow. His acting credits include Short Shakespeare! Romeo and Juliet and The Three Musketeers (Chicago Shakespeare Theater) and The Tempest (First Folio Shakespeare Festival). He is a graduate of Southern Methodist University and was an acting intern with the Milwaukee Repertory Theater and the American Players Theatre.

Suzanne Roberts Smith: A graduate of the National Theatre School, Suzanne’s credits include Florence in the Ginkgo Tree and Marie-Louise in The Thirteen One (Blyth Festival, 2005) and Choreographer in For Coloured Girls Who Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow is Enuf (Coloured Girls Collective, Dir: Andrew Moodie). She is a member of Afro Brazilian percussion troupe Maracatu Nunca Antes.

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Read Not Dead performance, photo: Andy Bradshaw

September 19, 2008

Each year, Globe Education offers staged readings of little-known plays written between 1567 and 1642 by Shakespeare’s contemporaries. This week, the Globe announced the next four plays to be presented in the Read Not Dead series between October and December 2008. The series, which began in 1994, has given audiences the unique opportunity see more than 150 plays that might otherwise have never been performed. The staged readings are presented by leading actors and directors in the Globe Education Theatre in Bear Gardens.

Below is the list of Read Not Dead Performances for the Autumn/Winter 2008 Season

Selected Sundays 15.00 to c18.00

The Doubtful Heir (1639) by James Shirley
Sunday 26 October
Smuggled out of Murcia as a baby to protect him from his tyrannous uncle, Ferdinand
returns as an adult to challenge the right to the throne of his cousin, Olivia. With him,
disguised as a page, is his childhood sweetheart, Rosania. Will the rights of the
‘doubtful heir’ be recognised? Will Ferdinand be free to marry Rosania? First
performed in Dublin under the title Rosania, or Love’s Victory, and later revived in
London by the King’s Men, Shirley’s tragicomedy skilfully dramatises the competing
demands of politics and romance.

A Challenge for Beauty (1635) by Thomas Heywood
Sunday 9 November
Isabella, the proud queen of Spain and Portugal, refuses to believe that any woman
alive can challenge her for beauty and virtue. Lord Bonavida rashly disputes her
claim, and finds himself facing eternal banishment if he cannot find a paragon to
match her. His choice lights on the Englishwoman Helena, but the queen will not
surrender without a fight. A Challenge for Beauty shows an elder statesman of
English drama trying his hand at the fashionable style of the mid 1630s.

The Northern Lass (1629) by Richard Brome
Sunday 23 November
Constance, the ‘northern lass’, arrives in London, where she fatefully encounters Sir
Philip Sparrow, and becomes embroiled in the knight’s romantic entanglements.
Mistaken identity, madness, and numerous disguises follow. Praised by Jonson,
Dekker and Ford on its publication in 1632, Brome’s witty and touching comedy, with
its appealing heroine, was a popular hit on the Caroline stage, and remained in the
theatrical repertory well into the eighteenth century.

The Lover’s Melancholy (1628) by John Ford
Sunday 7 December
‘The commonwealth is sick; ’tis more than time / That we should wake the head
thereof’. Palador, Prince of Cyprus, is consumed by a deep melancholy following the
death of his despotic father, while the old Lord Meleander has sunk into madness
following the attempted rape and subsequent disappearance of his daughter,
Eroclea. With a little help from Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy, Ford’s play details
the political and psychological ramifications of a tyrant’s actions on the next
generation.

Venue: Globe Education Centre Theatre, 58 Park Street, SE1
Tickets: £8 (£5 FoSG/concs/students)

RARELY PLAYED
Maggy Williams and Diana Devlin present introductions to the Read Not Dead performances.

Selected Sundays 12noon to 14.00
Venue: Nancy W Knowles Lecture Theatre, Shakespeare’s Globe, 21 New Globe
Walk, SE1 9DT
Tickets: £13 (£10 FoSG/concs/students) includes ticket to the Read Not Dead performance.

Web Resources:
Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre

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Martha Henry, Director of Stratford’s Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatr

September 19, 2008

The Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre begins its 11th session on September 23, with a new class of talented young actors embarking on 19 weeks of intensive classical theatre training at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

Under the direction of Martha Henry, the conservatory is North America’s only conservatory training program for classical actors. Operating from September through February, the conservatory consists of an intensive program by senior artists and teachers. The conservatory is a paid program with no tuition fees.

Roughly 250 people auditioned for a place in the conservatory. The six selected are: Quincy Armorer, Skye Brandon, Jennifer Paterson, Christopher Prentice, Suzanne Roberts Smith and Matt Steinberg. “They are a wonderful mix of people,” says Henry, “all quite different.

“They’re all people who, when they come into the audition room, make you sit up and say, ‘Oh, that’s interesting.’ And they all have a real need to be here, which when you are auditioning is an essential quality.”

Before acceptance into the conservatory, all of these actors had been through a theatre training program and worked professionally for several years. Upon completion of the conservatory training, the six actors will be given contracts for the 2009 season at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival.

In a new development at the conservatory, some of last year’s participants have been invited to return to further their training. “We are extending our involvement with these young actors by offering them a second year of training,” Henry says. “We select the very, very best into the program and will continue our commitment to them if they feel they wish to have more time in the conservatory.”

In the 2009 season, the conservatory actors will appear, along with senior members of the company, in Ben Jonson’s Bartholomew Fair under the direction of Antoni Cimolino, general director of the Festival. This production will play at the Tom Patterson Theatre during the Festival’s regular season.

The Birmingham Conservatory was founded in 1998 by former artistic director Richard Monette. Monette was scheduled to direct the conservatory’s third-term production of The Two Gentleman of Verona, until his sudden passing on September 9.

“Richard founded this Conservatory; it belonged to him,” says Henry. “Our sorrow is doubled now that we will have no chance to have his vast insight, knowledge and wit in the rehearsal hall.”

In Monette’s place, Stephen Ouimette, a long-standing member of the Festival company, will direct the final Conservatory project, which will be presented on February 14. “Richard would have been gratified and relieved to have Stephen represent him within the Conservatory,” Henry says. “Mr. Ouimette is an actor and director of extraordinary skill. We’re privileged to have him take the torch from Richard and carry it on.”

Martha Henry, the director of the conservatory, has been associated with the Stratford Festival since she appeared as Miranda to William Hutt’s first Prospero in 1962. Since then she has participated in over 60 productions and received numerous awards for her work.

Web Resources:
List of the 2009 Members of the Birmingham Conservatory
Birmingham Conservatory for Classical Theatre

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Performance of Hamlet at Blackfriars Playhouse, photo by Tommy Thompson

September 18, 2008

For a lost Shakespeare play, Cardenio is receiving some significant time on stage this year. Last May, the American Repertory Theatre in Massachusetts produced an updated re-imaging of Cardenio written by Shakespearean scholar Stephen Greenblatt and playwright Charles Mee. Now, the American Shakespeare Center (ASC) is offering a staged reading of The History of Cardenio, Professor Gary Taylor’s reconstruction of the Bard’s lost work. The one-time performance will be presented Sunday, October 5 at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia.

“We are pleased that Gary Taylor, the scholar who revolutionized the way we edit Shakespeare’s plays, has reconstructed Shakespeare’s lost play about Don Quixote,” said Ralph Alan Cohen, director of mission of the American Shakespeare Center.

Gary Taylor is professor of English at Florida State University and General Editor of the Oxford editions of Shakespeare’s Complete Works and of the Collected Works of Thomas Middleton, published last year by Oxford University Press. Taylor is also the author of numerous books on literature and literary theory, including Reinventing Shakespeare: A Cultural History from the Restoration to the Present.

Many scholars believe that Shakespeare and his collaborator John Fletcher wrote Cardenio around 1612, using an episode from Miguel de Cervantes’s novel Don Quixote as a primary source. The play was performed at the court of King James I and possibly at the original Blackfriars Theatre in London. Cardenio was not included in the First Folio of 1623 and the text of play disappeared, leading to a three-century-long search that made Cardenio the stuff of literary myth.

In 1727, Lewis Theobald, an editor of Shakespeare’s works, announced he had obtained three manuscripts of Cardenio. He adapted the play into a work called Double Falsehood, or the Distressed Lovers. Unfortunately, the manuscripts Theobald claimed to have disappeared, although the play Double Falsehood survived.

Taylor’s used Theobald ’s adaptation as the basis for his recreation of Cardenio. Through painstaking archival research and detailed linguistic analysis, he has tried to get as close to the original text as possible. “When I’m in the process of undoing the damage that Theobald did in adapting the play,” Taylor said, “I have to use the language of Shakespeare’s time to undo the language of the eighteenth century.”

“The lost play was written by two very successful playwrights who knew what they were doing,” said Taylor, “and it was performed at court not once but twice – so, this should be a wonderful piece of theatre.”

Taylor began work on his reconstruction of Cardenio several years ago. The American Shakespeare Center’s performance is part of an ongoing series of public readings of Taylor’s work including an informal reading in early 2006 in New York and public readings at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts in 2006 and Florida State University in 2007. Both the Williamsburg and FSU performances were directed by Joe Cacaci and produced by David Black. Most recently, Cardenio received a public reading in 2008 at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C.

Professor Gary Taylor, photo courtesy Florida State University

Taylor’s reconstruction of Cardenio will be read on stage at the Blackfriars by the ASC’s resident Equity acting troupe. The performance will be Taylor’s chance to test his text in a kind of laboratory setting, taking advantage of the Blackfriars stage and the experience of its actors and audiences with Renaissance staging practices. “A piece of reconstructing the play would be to try it out at a theatre like the Blackfriars and with actors who are used to working with Shakespeare in such conditions,” said Taylor.

“Each of these readings has differed from the others, as I have learned from the actors and audiences of each, improving the reconstruction line by line and scene by scene.”

“My principle is that anything that doesn’t work can’t have been what Shakespeare and Fletcher originally wrote. So in a sense my re-creation is not only my work, but the work of all the actors, directors, and audiences who have tested it for me.”

“They’re our focus group and our sample that tells us whether this is going to work for much larger international audiences.”

Following the ASC performance in October, Cardenio will be given a public reading on November 3 at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater.

This is not the first time Taylor has reconstructed a work by Shakespeare. He previously prepared a conjectural reconstruction of Pericles for The Oxford Shakespeare, first published in 1986. The surviving copies of Pericles are generally accepted to represent a corrupted version of Shakespeare’s original play. Taylor advanced the theory that Shakespeare wrote Pericles in collaboration with George Wilkin and he drew on Wilkin’s prose narrative The Painful Adventures of Pericles (1608) to replace missing material and show what the original play might have looked like.

The performance of The History of Cardenio is the first in the ASC’s 2008/09 series of Bring ‘Em Back Alive staged readings intended to introduce contemporary audiences to Renaissance English plays that are rarely, if ever, performed in the modern era. Other readings in the series are all written by anonymous Renaissance playwrights: Look About You on November 9, The Tragedy of Caesar and Pompey or Caesar’s Revenge on March 15 and Edward III (possibly by Shakespeare) on April 19. All of these staged readings will be presented at the Blackfriars Playhouse, open to the public and free of charge.

For those who are unable to see Cardenio in performance, Taylor will make a printed version of the play available to the public in the future. The ASC will make an announcement when Taylor’s edition of Cardenio becomes available.

The American Shakespeare Center will present The History of Cardenio, on Sunday, October 5 at 7:30 p.m. at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia. The performance is open to the public and free of charge.

CORRECTION: The first version of this article incorrectly stated that the American Shakespeare Company production would be the first time the play has been seen by an audience. In fact, as Professor Taylor notes in his comment below, Cardenio has received several public readings in recent years. His corrections and comments have since been incorporated into this article.

Web Resources:
The American Shakespeare Center
Gary Taylor bio
The New York Times - New Life for an Old Play, but Is It Shakespeare’s?
Online text of The Double Falsehood

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Cover of The New Testament 1526 edition translated by William Tyndale

September 17, 2008

The British Library is now offering the first complete full-color facsimile of William Tyndale’s pioneering translation of the New Testament from Greek into English. The library holds one of only two surviving copies of Tyndale’s Bible, from the 3,000 copies originally printed.

This new edition, The New Testament 1526, contains an authoritative introduction by David Daniell, Chairman Emeritus of the Tyndale Society and author of William Tyndale: A Biography.

Between 1525 and 1535, Tyndale produced the first English Bible, translating the whole of the New Testament and half of the Old Testament. Tyndale’s Bible was printed by Peter Schoeffer in the German city of Worms since its publication was illegal in England.

Under the 1408 Constitutions of Oxford, England forbad any version of the Bible other than St Jerome’s fourth century Latin translation, also known as the Vulgate. During the reign of Henry VIII, the ban was enforced by Cardinal Wolsey and the Lord Chancellor, Sir Thomas More in an attempt to prevent the spread of Protestantism.

Tyndale’s translation was pronounced heretical the English authorities. Despite the ban, Tyndale’s Bibles still made it to England, smuggled into the country in bales of cloth.

Although Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church in the early 1530s, Tyndale was still accused of spreading sedition. He was captured, condemned as a heretic and finally strangled and burned at the stake outside Brussels in 1536.

Tyndale, however, would have the final word, quite literally. The New Testament of the King James Bible of 1611 was heavily influenced, sometimes almost word for word, by Tyndale’s translation. .

The British Library purchased the 1526 edition of Tyndale’s Bible in 1994 for a little over a million pounds. The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom and one of the world’s greatest research libraries. The library’s collection has developed over 250 years and exceeds 150 million separate items representing every age of written civilization.

The New Testament 1526 edition translated by William Tyndale is published in hardback by the British Library. Price £30.00, 700, ISBN 978 0 7123 50 28 0.

The book is vailable from the British Library Shop (tel: +44 (0)20 7412 7735 / e-mail:

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Archaeological remains of the Rose Theatre

September 17, 2008

The Rose Theatre archaeological site in London will be open to the general public 20 and 21 September as part of Open House London. Open House London is an architectural showcase designed to highlight architecture, design excellence and areas of urban change. The event gives visitors the opportunity to experience architecture up close through 700 buildings tours and architectural walks throughout London.

Hourly tours of the Rose will be given during the open house. Visitors will also have the opportunity to watch a staged reading of Henry V1, Part One, which was first performed at the Rose in 1592. The performance is directed by Gemma Colcough with Suzanne Taylor in the role of Joan. Performances start at 6 p.m. Tickets for unreserved seats cost £5.00.

The Rose Theatre was built in 1587 by Philip Henslowe in London’s Bankside district. At the time, Bankside was notorious for its brothels, gaming dens and bear-baiting pits. The region was outside the jurisdiction of London’s city fathers who would not allow a theatre to be built within the city walls. The Rose was the fifth purpose-built theatre in London and the first on Bankside. Christopher Marlowe’s plays Doctor Faustus, The Jew of Malta and Tamburlaine the Great were first performed at the Rose. Its repertory also included Thomas Kyd’s play The Spanish Tragedy and William Shakespeare’s plays Henry VI and Titus Andronicus. It is possible that Shakespeare started his theatrical career at the Rose.

The archaeological remains of the Rose were discovered in 1989 following the demolition of a 1950s office block. Archaeologists from the Museum of London excavated about two thirds of the theatre’s foundation including the remains to two successive stages. The site is now contained in the basement of a building constructed after the 1989 excavation. Visitors are able to observe the remains from a viewing platform. Red rope lights around the foundations indicate the size of the Rose, its courtyard and the position of the two stages.

The hours for the Rose Theatre open house are 11 a.m. - 6 p.m. on both Saturday the 20th and Sunday the 21st. Tours are available every hour on the hour. The last entry is at 5 p.m.

Web Resources
The Rose Theatre website
Open House London

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