Shakespeare in Love
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The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE: Know-the-Show Guide The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s production of Shakespeare in Love Based on the screenplay by Marc Norman & Tom Stoppard Adapted for the stage by Lee Hall Music by Paddy Cunneen Originally produced on the West End by Disney Theatrical Productions and Sonia Friedman Productions, directed by Declan Donnellan, and designed by Nick Ormerod Directed by Bonnie J. Monte - - - - - - - - - Know-the-Show Audience Guide researched and written by the Education Department of Artwork by Scott McKowen The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE: Know-the-Show Guide In this Guide – About Shakespeare in Love ....................................................................................................... 2 – About the Creators .................................................................................................................... 3 – Shakespeare in Love: A Short Synopsis ...................................................................................... 4 – Who’s Who in the Play ............................................................................................................. 6 – Historical Figures in Shakespeare in Love .................................................................................. 7 – Theatre in Shakespeare’s London............................................................................................... 9 – A Shakespeare Timeline .......................................................................................................... 12 – Commentary & Criticism ........................................................................................................ 13 – In this Production ................................................................................................................... 14 – Explore Online ....................................................................................................................... 15 Provident Bank of New Jersey and Beacon Trust are proud sponsors of Shakespeare in Love. Sponsored in part by Dr. W. John Bauer and Nancy B. Boucher. Additional sponsorship support from Wood Huntley and Beirne Donaldson. 1 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE: Know-the-Show Guide Universal sold the screenplay to Harvey Weinstein, co-founder of Miramax. Gwyneth Paltrow (Emma) and a relatively unknown Joseph Fiennes starred and John Madden Shakespeare in Love (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, About Miss Sloane) directed. It won seven Academy Awards, including Best In 1997, Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard In the 1980s, Marc Norman had an idea to write a film about William received Academy Awards for their screenplay. Original Screenplay, Best Picture, Shakespeare starting an acting company. This seed of an idea led to a year of Best Actress (Gwyneth Paltrow) intense research, contemplation, and writing. In 1991, Norman completed his and Best Supporting Actress (Judi Dench); three Golden Globe Awards (Best script, which was bought by Universal. The director, Edward Zwick, wanted Picture, Best Original Screenplay, and Best Actress); and numerous other awards, some reworking done on it before production, and brought in acclaimed including the MTV Movie Award for Best Kiss. playwright Tom Stoppard to enhance the script. Things were going well for the film, which was set to star Julia Roberts as the poetry-loving, pants-wearing A decade and a half later, West End producer Sonia Friedman was looking to Viola. In 1992, a mere weeks bring the award-winning film to the stage. After consulting with Tom Stoppard, before shooting was to begin, she enlisted Lee Hall (Billy Elliott, Victoria and however, the production Abdul) to adapt the screenplay for the stage. shut down. They had been The stage-version of Shakespeare in Love unable to find a appropriate opened in London in June 2014 at the Noël actor to play Will — one with Coward Theatre, where it was nominated for an significant Shakespearean Olivier Award for Best New Comedy. The play chops, charisma, and box- received its North American premiere in 2016 office draw. Roberts’ first at the Stratford Festival in Canada. choice, Daniel Day Lewis, was not interested in the We are pleased to be the first theatre in our project. Roberts pulled out of region to present Shakespeare in Love for the project, and with that, the metro-area audiences. We hope you love it as film was put on hold. much as we do! Five years later, interest in the script arose again, and Whitney Maris Brown and Jon Barker in The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey 2 production of Shakespeare in Love, 2017. Photo credit: Tyler Barrett The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE: Know-the-Show Guide Invention of Love, as well as screenplays for Brazil, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Anna Karenina. In 1997, he won an Academy Award with Marc Norman for their original screenplay Shakespeare in Love. MARC NORMAN (Original Screenwriter) was born in 1941 in Los Angeles, and received his Masters AboutThe Creators in English from Berkeley. Following graduation, he pursued numerous positions in the entertainment TOM STOPPARD (Original Screenwriter) was industry at Universal Studios; mail courier, born Tomas Straussler in Czechoslavakia in 1937. executive assistant, casting director, to name just a When the Nazis invaded his hometown in 1939, few. He pitched story ideas to television producer his family fled to Singapore, and later moved Roy Huggins, and eventually one was purchased. on to Australia. His father was taken prisoner in He later was hired to rewrite television scripts and Singapore, where he later died. The family moved later scripts for features. His screenplays include to India, where his mother married a British Oklahoma Crude (1973), The Aviator (1985), and military man named Kenneth Stoppard. After the Cutthroat Island (1995). He began work around Marc Norman; war, the family moved to England, where young Photo: Leroy Hamilton/WGA 1990 on Shakespeare in Love (Stoppard was Stoppard attended secondary school. However, brought in to rewrite and co-author), for which he never had a formal college education. he won two Academy Awards — Best Screenplay and, as one of the film’s Tom Stoppard; producers, Best Picture. Photo: Santiago Mejia, Stoppard began his career in 1954 (at 17-years Special to the Chronicle old) as a journalist when he was hired by the LEE HALL (Adaptor) was born in 1966 in Western Daily Press. He later was hired as a Northumberland, and schooled in Cambridge. Before feature writer and humorist for the Bristol Evening World, where he also wrote his writing career took off, Hall was a fundraiser theatre reviews. His first play, A Walk on the Water (1960), was televised and for youth theatres. He is most well known for his later produced for the stage under a new name (Enter a Free Man) in 1968. Academy Award nominated screenplay Billy Elliot, One of his most popular works began as a one act entitled Rosencrantz and which he later adapted into a musical with Elton John, Guildenstern Visit King Lear as part of the 1964 Edinburgh Fringe Festival. It and won a Tony Award for Best Book for a Musical. was later reworked as a full-length play and received great acclaim when it Other screenwriter credits include Pride & Prejudice, was performed at the National Theatre in 1967 under the title Rosencrantz and The Wind in the Willows, War Horse, and Victoria Guildenstern Are Dead. and Abdul. Stage credits include Cooking With Elvis, Two’s Company, and The Pitmen Painters. Stoppard’s decades-long career spans work on stage, television, and film and includes stage productions of Jumpers, Travesties, The Real Thing, Arcadia, The Lee Hall; Photo: The Journal, Newcastle 3 The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE: Know-the-Show Guide BORROWING FROM THE BARD laid on Viola. Keep an ear out for these “soon-to-be-famous” lines When accosted that pop up in Shakespeare in Love: and asked for Shakespeare later to appear in Macbeth — his name, Will “Out, damned spot” introduces himself “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...” as Christopher “Avaunt, and quit my sight!” in LoveA Short Synopsis Marlowe, a fellow playwright. later to appear in Hamlet — Later, Will woos “...that is the question” “The play’s the thing!” Please note: Below is a full summary of the play. If you prefer not to Viola outside her “Angels and ministers of grace defend us” spoil the plot, consider skipping this section. balcony. as well as — As rehearsals In the heat of the cutthroat competition between Elizabethan theatres, Philip “O, brave new world” (Tempest) Henslowe (owner of The Rose theatre) and Richard Burbage (owner of The begin, and with “The course of true love never did run Curtain theatre) both find themselves in frantic anticipation of a new play a new spark of smooth” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream) from an up-and-coming playwright, Will Shakespeare. Henslowe, who was inspiration, Will “Out, vile jelly!” (King Lear) “O, you are sick of self love” (Twelfth Night) promised the play first, is hoping for a great success so he can pay off his reworks his play, “(wardrobe) mistress, quickly!” (Henry IV and debts to a loan shark by the name of Fennyman. Unfortunately, Will is facing introducing a new The Merry Wives of Windsor” a debilitating case of writer’s block as he struggles to write his next comedy, love interest for Romeo and Ethel the Pirate’s Daughter. Romeo named Juliet. Eventually, WHAT’S IN A NAME?