Blogging Shakespeare

Two years ago I was approached by our colleagues and friends at The Shakespeare Institute: would The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust be interested in collaborating on a new MA Programme on Shakespeare and Creativity? I was more than interested. The idea resonated through years of my seeing and knowing that Shakespeare is a tremendous source of [...]

Shakespeare has been a source of creative inspiration for many aspiring writers, who may only hope to achieve a fraction of the timeless appeal that his works have consistently held from the Elizabethan age to the present.  My most recent post for Blogging Shakespeare focused on how Shakespeare’s writing influenced that of J.R.R. Tolkien, a [...]

My own schooling was very different to Shakespeare’s. I didn’t have to arrive at school by 6.30am most mornings; I didn’t have to speak Latin and Greek in the classroom; I wasn’t ever threatened with the birch. I went to Huntington Comprehensive School in York and that is where I fell in love with Shakespeare. [...]

At the back of the stage were three panels showing images of old boys from 1913 onwards. I was aware of the St George’s flag being included as part of the design. As I peered more closely, I noticed that some of the photographs of the boys had a similar red cross of St George [...]

It all started about eighteen months ago. The University of Notre Dame in London wanted very much to feel it was doing all it could to honour Stanley Wells  C.B.E. as the pre-eminent Shakespeare scholar. So, Notre Dame’s London director, Greg Kucich, and Shakespeare scholar Boika Sokolva invited The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and The Shakespeare [...]

While recently travelling to speak at an English teacher’s convention on the use of Shakespeare’s works in the elementary school classroom, I spent the day before my trip frantically writing plans for my substitute teacher. My fifth and sixth-grade students had recently been studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream to prepare for an upcoming production they [...]

Pericles has a claim to be Shakespeare’s most overlooked play. Nonprofessional Shakespeareans are likely never to have seen, read, or even heard of it. It is among the last plays to have entered the canon. The text is notoriously corrupt. And the consensus that it is a collaboration is among the firmest for any of [...]

As a self-proclaimed Shakespeare fanatic, I take it for granted that anyone would not be completely enthralled with reading, reciting, or otherwise obsessing over iambic pentameter. What’s not to love? Shakespeare has something for everyone. I equate reading Shakespeare with selecting the perfect movie to watch on a Saturday night. Shakespeare’s selection of works offers [...]

A special dispatch from Perry Mills, of King Edward VI Grammar School, Stratford-upon-Avon (Shakespeare’s School), one of the most inspiring school teachers I know… ‘In recent years Edward’s Boys – an all-boy theatre company from King Edward VI School, Stratford-upon-Avon (“Shakespeare’s School”) – have been performing rarely-seen plays originally written for the Early Modern boys’ [...]