Blogging Shakespeare

                  While attending the Folger Shakespeare Library’s Elementary Educators Conference this summer, I had the supreme pleasure of meeting two fantastic authors,  who have supplied those of us who dare to teach Shakespeare with two inspiring, new resources for the classroom.  Acclaimed playwright Ken Ludwig recently published […]

Bitola, Macedonia, 19-25 July 2013   The Bitola Shakespeare Festival is extending the bold intercultural experiment of last year’s Globe-to-Globe Festival in London. As part of the 2012 Cultural Olympiad, Globe-to-Globe launched a planetary Shakespeare project by inviting 37 companies from around the world to perform the playwright’s works in their home languages. The Bitola […]

This post is part of Year of Shakespeare, a project documenting the World Shakespeare Festival, the greatest celebration of Shakespeare the world has ever seen.   Henry V, Shakespeare’s Globe, Dir. Dominic Dromgoole, 8 June 2012 at The Globe, London By Abigail Rokison, University of Cambridge At the end of the Globe Theatre’s ‘English’ offering, Henry […]

If you know even a little about Shakespeare’s theatre you will probably imagine it as very bare, they did not have painted backdrops or elaborate scenery. For this reason you may find it hard to picture more dramatic moments as they may have looked in the theatre spaces Shakespeare knew. Henry VI was probably first […]

Following on from last week’s blog which looked at Shakespeare’s sources for Henry VI part 1, I am going to move on to part 2. Again Shakespeare uses two historical sources Holinshed’s Chronicles and Edward Hall’s  The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York. Shakespeare selects details which suit him […]

Henry VI is Shakespeare’s longest play in that it runs to 3 parts. As with nearly all of Shakespeare’s History plays he relies heavily on Holinshed’s Chronicles sometimes borrowing descriptions almost directly from his source text. But always adding his own unique touches, the study of which makes looking at his use of source texts […]

The recent flash riots which broke out in London and various cities across the UK last week immediately reminded me of the Jack Cade scenes in 2 Henry VI. Cade, a mercenary in the pay of the Duke of York, whips up a rebellion in Kent, and leads a motely crew of artisans into Southwark, […]

Characters in contention for leading role in theatre Shakespeare tribute: Sad Stories of the Death of Kings (Richard II/Henry VI, Part III) ‘This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle/ This earth of majesty’. The words of John of Gaunt in Richard II evoke romantic visions of a lost England: a demi-paradise surrounded by silver […]

This post is part of our Shakespeare’s Women series in partnership with the collections team over at Finding Shakespeare. On flickr we have created a collection portraying these wonderful ladies.   Picture the scene. A disarmingly down-to-earth peasant girl, who has just been heralded the French people’s champion, stands before the dead body of England’s […]