The London Shakespeare Centre team at King's ran several projects under the Shakespeare400 banner throughout 2016. This blog is made up of contributions from the academic team, about their projects, as well as Early Modern and Shakespeare Studies students who have been involved in the activities.
Post by Gordon McMullan, Professor of English and Academic Director of Shakespeare400 'If, I thought, King’s could lead the charge for the Tercentenary of 1916, why in the era of the insistence that universities create ‘impact’ should it not do so in 2016?'. Read about how the idea to celebrate 400 years of Shakespeare began Read more...
Performance Shakespeare 2016 is a digital archive that gathers information and visuals related to about 400 worldwide performances of Shakespeare in the anniversary year. Read more...
Post by Dr Daniel Starza Smith, Lecturer in Early Modern English Literature (1500-1700). Shakespeare400 proudly presents The Masque of Queens, by Ben Jonson and Inigo Jones, directed by Dr Emma Whipday and performed 11 August 2016 at New College Chapel, Oxford. Read more...
Post by Emma Whipday, Teaching Fellow in Shakespeare and Early Modern English Literature In my play Shakespeare’s Sister, recently published by Samuel French and performed in a staged reading at the King’s ‘What You Will Festival’ in February 2016, I follow Woolf in reimagining the life of a canonical writer from the perspective of those who were forbidden the roles of actor and writer: the women who lived on the edge of the world of the theatre, but couldn’t inhabit it. Read more...
Post by Sonia Massai, Professor of Shakespeare Studies A new BBC iWonder Guide devoted to Global Shakespeare was published online yesterday. I was very excited to be part of this project, which offers a snapshot of how international theatre artists work with Shakespeare, by translating his plays and resetting them in new contexts, thus making them more accessible and relevant to non-English audiences worldwide. Read more...
Post by Gordon McMullan, Professor of English and Academic Director of Shakespeare400 A hundred years ago, for the Shakespeare Tercentenary of 1916, there was a slight awkwardness (over and above, I mean, other slight awkwardnesses of the moment such as the First World War and the Easter Rising in Dublin). It struck someone in government that 23 April that year was not only the three-hundredth anniversary of Shakespeare’s death but also Easter Sunday (not to mention St George’s Day). Read more...
First published in 1609, Shakespeare’s sonnets are among the most accomplished and absorbing poems in the English language. They are also some of the most beloved with continued readings, recitations, and reprints fortifying Shakespeare’s claim in Sonnet 60: “My verse shall stand”. Read more...
In September this year, we will be further developing our pedagogical collaboration with two important cultural organisations by launching a MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which we have built in partnership with the British Library and the Globe, and which draws on the structure of our two MA programmes. Read more...
In 1616, a leading dramatist and poet died and was roundly mourned by all of his contemporaries. I have in mind here not Shakespeare, but Francis Beaumont, who died on 6 March 1616 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Read more...
At a recent performance workshop for the Shakespeare400 “What You Will” Festival at King’s, I worked with Professor Lena Cowen Orlin, Professor Laura Gowing, and a team of talented actors, to bring to life records from the archives... Read more...
