BSA Bulletin for March 2017
3rd March 2017
Announcing our Honorary Fellows for 2017
The British Shakespeare Association endows two Honorary Fellowships each year. The Fellowships Committee chaired by Andrew Jarvis is now proud to announce that the BSA Honorary Fellows for 2017 are Sarah Stanton, formerly Publisher, Shakespeare and early modern literary studies for Cambridge University Press, and the actor Adrian Lester, one of the strongest Shakespearian performers of our time. The Fellowships will be conferred at our Honorary Fellows Award event and Annual General Meeting on Saturday 4th November, at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust in Stratford. Full details will be advertised in due course.
Announcing the annual conferences for 2018, 2019, and 2020
After a rigorous process of application and review, the Events Committee of the BSA is proud to announce the institutions that will host our three upcoming annual conferences and their titles. The BSA Annual Conference of 2018 will take place at Queen’s University Belfast on 14-17 June under the title Shakespeare Studies Today. Swansea University will host the conference in 2019 with the title Shakespeare: Race and Nation, while in 2020 it will take place at the University of Surrey and the theme will be Shakespeare in Action. We would like to thank all three institutions for the hard work they have invested in their applications, and we look forward to visiting Belfast, Swansea, and Surrey in due course. The Belfast and Swansea BSA conferences will be the first to take place in Northern Ireland and in Wales, respectively, which is enormously exciting, as the BSA would have visited all four constituent nations of the United Kingdom by the end of 2019.
Teachers’ Conference: Shakespeare and Creativity, The Shakespeare Centre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 3-5 August 2017
The BSA and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust are co-organising the first Teachers’ Conference, coordinated by Chris Green (BSA Teaching Trustee) and Nick Walton (SBT Education) under the title ‘Shakespeare and Creativity’. The price will be £180, and will include tickets to see the Royal Shakespeare Company new productions of Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, as well as a series of sessions with members of the RSC casts, professional directors, and scholars from the Shakespeare Institute and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Full information on http ://www . britishshakespeare . ws/announcing-the-bsa-and-sbt-teachers-conference/
Teaching Shakespeare 11 is out!
Apart from the usual selection of articles for educators and students in all sectors, don’t miss our competition…compete with prizes! We have three copies of the gorgeous publication Colouring Shakespeare with a foreword by Simon Callow to give away to readers. You can download your free copy here: http ://www . britishshakespeare . ws/teaching-shakespeare-11-is-out/
Given that we’re now into double figures in terms of issues, we’re inviting readers to take 10 minutes to answer a short online survey about the magazine to make it even stronger as we go forward: http ://www . britishshakespeare . ws/we-want-your-opinion-on-teaching-shakespeare/ With huge thanks in advance from the Education Committee.
New Editors for the Education Network Blog
As of February 2017, following on from the excellent work of Dr. Sarah Olive, our Education Network blog will be jointly edited by the BSA’s two Teaching Trustees: Chris Green and Karen Eckersall. Chris and Karen will welcome any contributions to the education network blog. You can contact them with articles, ideas or questions at the following email addresses: Chris Green – Karen Eckersall – More information on: http ://www . britishshakespeare . ws/new-editors-of-the-education-network-blog
BSA Panels, ‘Shared Futures’, English Association and University English Conference, Newcastle 5-7 July 2017
The BSA invites members—teachers, theatre practitioners, enthusiasts, academics—to participate in a series of three Shakespeare panels we will be running at the Shared Futures conference in Newcastle next summer: ‘Why Shakespeare now?’ (Chair Susan Anderson); Panel 2 ‘Sharing Shakespeare’s Language (workshop chaired by Alison Findlay, Andrew Jarvis and James Harrison-Smith) and Panel 3: Sharing Futures across primary, secondary and university education (Chairs: Chris Green and Karen Eckersall). Further details can be found on the BSA website. More information on: http ://www . britishshakespeare . ws/join-our-panels-at-the-shared-futures-conference/ Members who wish to participate but do not have access to financial support (e.g. from a university or school) can apply for a BSA Bursary to help with the costs of attending.
BSA funding available for conference, events, and other activities
The BSA is able to award small amounts of money to Shakespeare-related education events, academic conferences and other activities taking place in the UK. For more information or to apply for funding, please email the Chair of the Events Committee, Susan Anderson (S.Anderson@leedstrinity.ac.uk) or the Chair of the Education Committee, Sarah Olive (sarah.olive@york.ac.uk).
CALLS FOR PAPERS
NEW CFP: European Shakespeare Research Association conference, Shakespeare and European Theatrical Cultures: AnAtomizing Text and Stage, University of Gdańsk and The Gdańsk Shakespeare Theatre, Poland, 27 – 30 July 2017
The deadline for the following seminars has been extended to MARCH 31st
- Avant-Garde Shakespeares/Shakespeare in the Avant-Garde
- “The accent of his tongue affecteth him:” “Accentism” and/in Shakespeare
- Anatomizing Shakespearean Myth-making: Game of Thrones
- Staged on the Page: Transmedial Shakespeare in Theatre and Visual Arts
- The name of action: actors of Shakespeare and Shakespearean actors
- Shakespeare and Music
- Shakespearean Drama and the Early Modern European Stage
- Magic through ritual objects and stage props: Early Modern practices and Modern adaptations
- Staging Utopias: Shakespeare in Print and Performance
- Shakespeare in performance in digital media
This conference will convene Shakespeare scholars at a theatre that proudly stands in the place where English players regularly performed 400 years ago. This makes us ponder with renewed interest the relation between theatre and Shakespeare. The urge to do so may sound like a commonplace, but it comes to us enhanced by the fact that in the popular and learned imagination alike Shakespeare is inseparable from theatre while the theatre, for four centuries now, first in England, then on the continent (Europe) and eventually in the world, has been more and more strongly defined and shaped by Shakespeare. Shakespeare has become the theatrical icon, a constant point of reference, the litmus paper for the formal, technological and ideological development of the theatre, and for the impact of adaptation and appropriation on theatrical cultures. Shakespeare has served as one of the major sources for the development of European culture, both high and low. His presence permeates the fine shades and fissures of a multifarious European identity. His work has informed educational traditions, and, through forms of textual transmit such as translation and appropriation, has actively contributed to the process of building national distinctiveness. Shakespeare has been one of the master keys and, at the same time, a picklock granting easier access to the complex and challenging space of European and universal values.
Please send your abstracts and biographies to seminar organisers (and cc conference organisers at gdansk@esra2017.eu) not later than 31 March 2017.
You need to be a member of ESRA to take part in the congress. It is free to join ESRA and you can register here (http ://www . um . es/shakespeare/esra/registration . php).
The list of seminars has been made available on the ESRA and the conference website
Keynote speakers: Professor Małgorzata Grzegorzewska (University of Warsaw), Professor Diana Henderson (MIT), Professor Peter Holland (University of Notre Dame), and Luc Perceval (Hamburg Thalia Theatre)
The congress coincides with the 21st International Shakespeare Festival in Gdansk taking place at the Gdansk Shakespeare Theatre
We will continue to update our website with the details of forthcoming productions and special festival events, including workshops with invited theatre companies and meetings with theatre directors.
NEW CFP: Performing Restoration Shakespeare: Applications for Summer Workshop at Shakespeare’s Globe, 10-13 July 2017
The AHRC-funded project ‘Performing Restoration Shakespeare’ (2017-2020) invites applications from UK and EU researchers (including PhD students in their second year or beyond) to participate in a scholar-artist workshop at Shakespeare’s Globe in July 2017. For this collaborative and practice-based event, we seek to recruit 10 researchers drawn from the disciplines of theatre history, musicology and Shakespeare studies. Selected participants will receive accommodation in London for 3 nights, subsistence, and up to £120 for travel expenses. The selected researchers will work with performing artists (actors, instrumentalists, singers) in a 4-day workshop on Restoration versions of The Tempest, to be held in the Globe’s rehearsal space and in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse from 10-13 July 2017. The sessions in the Wanamaker will be open to the public. Through a combination of archival study and reflective creative practice, we will investigate how Restoration Shakespeare can be performed today in a way that understands the historical context of this distinctive performance genre and then uses that understanding to create meaningful performances for contemporary audiences. This workshop offers a unique opportunity for collaboration with researchers from cognate disciplines, performing artists in theatre and music, Globe staff, and the general public. Additionally, the workshop offers the potential for publication in an edited volume arising from the project as a whole. ‘Performing Restoration Shakespeare’ is jointly led by theatre historian Richard Schoch (Queen’s University Belfast) and musicologist Amanda Eubanks Winkler (Syracuse University). Our partners are Shakespeare’s Globe, the Folger Shakespeare Library and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. To apply for a place in the workshop, please email a brief CV (2-3pp) and a 500-word statement of interest to Dr Claude Fretz, Research Fellow (Queen’s University Belfast) c.fretz@qub.ac.uk by April 1st 2017. In your statement of interest please explain how you would contribute to the workshop and how participating in the workshop would benefit your research. For further information, please contact Dr Claude Fretz. We expect to notify all applicants of the outcome by April 15th 2017.
NEW CFP: Shakespeare Unbound, Conference of the French Shakespeare Society, Paris, 18 – 20 January 2018
The Société Française Shakespeare is dedicating its annual conference to “Shakespeare Unbound”. The topic addresses Shakespeare’s propensity to negotiate with dominant ideologies, his ability to break and renew formal and cultural rules and his long-lasting influence in creating innovative dramatic and poetic forms, new words and thoughts, “And all that faith creates or love desires, / Terrible, strange, sublime and beauteous shapes” (Shelley), Prometheus-like. This conference will provide an occasion for academics, theatre, performance and arts practitioners to discuss Shakespeare and his contemporaries’ abilities to question and renew the boundaries of art. We welcome proposals (in English or in French) on topics such as:
– The publication and editorial history of Shakespeare’s and his contemporaries’ works — in bound and unbound formats;
– Shakespeare’s and his contemporaries’ reappropriation of classical and early modern culture, Shakespeare’s “borrowed robes”, his contribution to liberating dramatic and poetic aesthetics, and ability to “beguile Nature of her custom”;
– Shakespeare adaptations and appropriations from the 17th to the 21st century which have contributed to liberating or rediscovering his work and/or influence.
Selected proceedings will be published in the Société Française Shakespeare’s peer-reviewed online journal: http ://shakespeare . revues . org. Please send proposals by April 25, 2017 to contact@societefrancaiseshakespeare.org. Proposals should include a title, an abstract (750-word max.), and a short bio.
More information: http ://www . britishshakespeare . ws/cfp-shakespeare-unbound/
THE BSA MEMBERS’ BULLETIN
We are pleased to advertise news and activities by our members and other Shakespeare associations. If you would like to advertise a Shakespeare-related activity, please email our Membership Officer, José A. Pérez Díez, at membership@britishshakespeare.ws. Items below are not affiliated with or endorsed by the BSA – please use individual contact details for more information.
The Story of the Shakespeare Club of Stratford-upon-Avon 1824-2016, Susan Brock and Sylvia Morris, available now.
In their new book, The Story of the Shakespeare Club of Stratford-upon-Avon 1824-2016, Susan Brock and Sylvia Morris answer the question “How did it come about that a small market town in the centre of England became the focus of the worldwide worship of Shakespeare?” After all, London’s claims were much stronger being the place where he became famous and spent the most productive years of his life. The story of the part played by the Shakespeare Club of Stratford-upon-Avon, set up nearly 200 years ago by ordinary townsfolk and still in existence today, is told in this alternative history of the town. The Club was responsible for organising the first local festivities for Shakespeare’s Birthday on 23 April in 1827, 1830 and 1833. It played an important part in saving Shakespeare’ s Birthplace and setting up the Birthplace Trust. It worked towards the preservation of the Shakespeare monuments and the graves in Holy Trinity Church and it played a huge part in setting up the theatres in Stratford so that Shakespeare’s plays have a permanent home for their performance outside London. The fully-illustrated book is based on documentary evidence provided by the rich archives of the Club dating back to its foundation in 1824 and the archives of Stratford-upon-Avon which are preserved in the collections of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Published by the Shakespeare Club of Stratford-upon-Avon, copies (£12.99) are available direct from www . stratfordshakespeareclub . org or write to stratfordshakespeareclub@gmail.com.
“Madness and Folly”, the Fifth Ardingly Shakespeare Conference, 13 March 2017
The format is the same as in past years: an academic conference at school level. There will be three academic keynote speakers and a Shakespearean actor. The heart of the conference are student and teaching staff papers on a Shakespearean text of their choice, but with reference to the conference theme. Research papers should be 15-20 long, and can be read from a script. After the conference, we collect all papers and publish them as “Proceedings of the Ardingly Shakespeare Conference”. It is a great day, and a good opportunity for English students to measure themselves against their peers – and it is useful for UCAS forms. It is also a great opportunity for teachers to write a research paper on a text of their choice. Giving a paper is, of course, not obligatory. Please send your abstracts to Dr Markus Klinge,
“Why Does Cardenio Matter?”: A talk by Gary Taylor at the Richmond Shakespeare Society, Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham, 15 March 2017, 7:45pm.
Professor Gary Taylor talks about the lost Shakespeare-and-Fletcher play The History of Cardenio: what we know about it: how we know it: and why does it matter? If you’re interested in Shakespeare or theatre in general, or the Renaissance in England and Spain, take this rare opportunity to hear one of the world’s leading Shakespearean scholars speaking in the UK. He will describe his own long scholarly investigation, the creation of his reconstruction and the theatrical collaborations that have tested and refined it. And his talk serves as prologue to the UK premiere of his reconstruction, opening at the Mary Wallace Theatre the following Saturday. The talk will be free but ticketed.
The History of Cardenio by William Shakespeare, John Fletcher, and Gary Taylor, Richmond Shakespeare Society, Mary Wallace Theatre, Twickenham, 18-25 March 2017, 7:45pm.
The UK premiere of the most authentic vision of the lost Shakespeare play The History of Cardenio. Leading scholar Gary Taylor has made a lively, credible, theatrically viable reconstruction of Shakespeare and Fletcher’s 1612 play. Cardenio loves Lucinda. When he tells his friend Fernando about her, Fernando loves Lucinda too. But Fernando is already as good as married to Violante, a farmer’s daughter. So, to marry Lucinda, Fernando must be doubly false and betray the two people who are dearest to him. One will come close to death, another will go mad. Quesada, the old schoolmaster, has read too many stories of chivalry and determines to become a wandering knight. With his houseboy, Sancho, as his squire, he takes to the road to kill dragons and save damsels. There will be confrontations and absolutions but will everyone come out happy? Will everyone come out sane? RSS and Cutpurse present the British premiere of the most authentic vision of the lost play. One of the world’s leading Shakespeare scholars, Gary Taylor, collaborates posthumously with Shakespeare and Fletcher to re-create their adaptation of Don Quixote in a script that’s passionate, romantic and immensely funny. More information and bookings: http ://www . richmondshakespeare . org . uk/index . php/productions/production/the_history_of_cardenio/# . WJCwJE1XV3c
The Faith of William Shakespeare: a one-day conference, The Shakespeare Centre, Stratford-upon-Avon, 20 May 2017, 10am to 5pm
Join us to mark the 500th anniversary of the Reformation to explore what that meant to Shakespeare and Stratford-upon-Avon. Professor Peter Marshall (University of Warwick) will present an overview of religion during Shakespeare’s time; Professor Graham Holderness (University of Hertfordshire) will talk about Shakespeare’s Calvinism; Dr Tara Hamling (University of Birmingham) will curate a special exhibition based on Reformation-related material from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Collections; Professor Ann Hughes (Keele University) considers Stratford-upon-Avon’s Puritans; Dr Jonathan Willis (University of Birmingham) discusses public worship; Dr Cathryn Enis (University of Birmingham) will speak about friendships at a time of religious division; and Dr Robert Bearman (Honorary Fellow, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust) will talk about religion and Shakespeare’s daily mind. The conference is hosted by Dr Paul Edmondson, Head of Research, The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. With grateful acknowledgement to Lion Hudson Publishing for sponsoring this event.
Fee: £25.00 (£20.00 SBT Friends), includes refreshments (not lunch), and a copy of Graham Holderness’s new book, The Faith of William Shakespeare. On-line bookings only via: https://www . shakespeare . org . uk/visit/whats-on/faith-william-shakespeare/ Venue: The Wolfson Hall, The Shakespeare Centre. Arrivals from 9.45am.
King Lear (alone), one-man play with inamoment theatre.
After its highly acclaimed full outing last year, inamoment theatre’s one-man play King Lear (alone) is touring again in 2017, visiting festivals and theatre venues up and down the country. Using mostly Shakespeare’s words, and set in a modern day care home, it’s an astonishing tour de force by Bob Young, retelling the events that led to Lear’s tragedy.
“I left the theatre feeling like I’d been exposed to a flawed individual at their most honest . . . ” “King Lear (Alone) is a gripping production and the formidable performance given by Bob Young makes it compelling viewing.” “Bob Young in the title role, is a powerful performer. His tormented character takes shape thanks to his profound voice, whilst his presence on stage appears carefully studied….. In Bob Young’s poignant (portrayal), the play is quite intense.”
The play has been designed for performance in Schools, Theatres, Conferences, Halls etc. (we also offer a separate King Lear workshop), all details can be found at www . kinglearalone . uk. Please contact Frank Bramwell at inamomenttheatre@gmail.com to make booking enquiries.