Summer School 2020 June 26 — July 4 Cagli Theatre, Le Marche, Italy Tutors: Dame Janet Suzman ‘As You Like It’ Emma Lucia Hands ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ Introduction We are delighted to be able to introduce you to our 2020 Summer School. Following feedback from previous schools, we have reduced the time this year to two plays over eight days to make it easier for participants to fit into their busy schedules. We are also extremely pleased that Dame Janet Suzman, one of the greatest actresses of her generation, is returning to lead one of the plays (As You Like It) and also that Emma Lucia Hands who led one of the workshops last year is also coming back to us. Janet played Rosalind in As You Like It with the Royal Shakespeare Company, a production that SI founder Julian Curry recalls well—as he was in the same production! Janet says: “For this course, I have chosen one of the loveliest comedies set in a magical forest which could be anywhere, including Le Marche! Early in my career I played Celia to Dorothy Tutin’s Rosalind in 1965 at the RSC, and then ma- jored up to take on Rosalind which officially opened the Dorothy Chandler Theater at the Los Angeles Music Center in 1967.” Janet’s previous workshops with us have included her ground-breaking work on Othello, and Antony and Cleopatra (her performance being one of the defining Cleopatras of the age). Emma who is leading the workshop on A Midsummer Night’s Dream, led The Two Gentlemen of Verona last year in Florence, which was received with great enthusiasm by students. The summer school takes place at the beautiful Teatro Cagli and is open to anyone over the age of 18 who is fluent in English. Those participating will get a unique insight into the plays as well as the chance to explore the dramatic styles and techniques employed to bring the works to life. Students will be able to put sections of the plays on their feet, but anyone who does not wish to take part in any practical work can of course still participate. Dame Janet Suzman Stratford theatre before it was Janet also directed Kim Cattrall in re-built. Antony and Cleopatra at the In 1987, three years before Man- Liverpool Playhouse which was Dame Janet Suzman has starred dela walked out of prison, she then revived at the Chichester in a wide range of classical and made her directorial debut with a Festival Theatre in 2012. modern drama as well as production of Othello for The directing productions both in Market Theatre in Britain and in her native South Johannesburg, which proved Africa. She has also done a good both powerful and controversial few films and mini-series in her and attracted a large black time! Her roles for the Royal audience. Shakespeare Company started John Kani was the first African with Joan of Arc in The Wars of actor in the title role whose The Roses, and continued with native tongue was not English. It Rosaline in Love's Labour's Lost, was an enormous success, and Portia in The Merchant of Venice, was filmed for Channel 4 Ophelia in Hamlet, Kate in The Television. Taming of the Shrew, Beatrice in She writes: "What I am always Much Ado About Nothing, interested in is how the plays Rosalind in As You Like It, Lavinia relate to our world. Othello at in Titus Andronicus, culminating that time suited apartheid South in a Cleopatra which was hailed Africa like a glove. There is still as magisterial, ardent and much that can be explored in a seductive. more contemporary world along Her Lavinia in Coriolanus was the those lines; racism has not very last production in the old gone away". Emma Lucia Hands London, A Midsummer Night's characters, notably the Dream for East 15, Silent Night by melancholy Jaques, who Helen Newell for Theatre In The famously philosophises All the Quarter, A History of Falling world’s a stage. Things by James Graham at the Note: Volume 1 of our founder New Vic Theatre, A Journey Julian Curry’s Shakespeare on Through Cornish Poetry, Prose Stage includes an interview with and Music with Susan Rebecca Hall on playing Penhaligon, Richard Bucket Rosalind. Volume 2 contains an Overflows with Clive Swift and A interview with Alan Rickman Christmas Carol. on Jaques. She also directed a world premiere of a David Mamet A Midsummer Night's Dream Emma is the Artistic Director for play, The Vikings and Darwin, at Here Shakespeare yoked the post-graduate Diploma the National Theatre as part of together improbable dramatic Programmes at Drama Studio the New Connections Scheme. bedfellows. The marriage of two London. figures from classical mythology After gaining a BA in Drama and Notes on the Plays is interwoven with the romantic Theatre Studies from Royal cross-currents of four young Athenians, the rehearsals of a Holloway, University of London As You Like It and an MA in Theatre Directing group of amateur actors, and On the surface AYLI is a simple, squabbles between the king and from Middlesex University and pastoral romantic comedy. An GITIS, Moscow, Emma has queen of the fairies. The topsy- exploration of love is at its heart turvy action is propelled by the worked in theatre in the UK, and a happy ending is never in North America and Asia. hob-goblin Puck, who drops doubt. But at a deeper level it aphrodisiac juice from a small Directing credits as an Associate touches on a host of subjects flower onto sleeping eyelids. Director for Clwyd Theatr Cymru such as usurpation and injustice, Sometimes he hits the right include: The Herbal Bed by Peter forgiveness, gender, court and eyelids, sometimes the wrong Whelan, Ghosts by Henrik Ibsen country life, aging and death. ones. Preposterously far-fetched adapted by Mike Poulton, Arms Shakespeare wrote a handful of though it may sound, the and the Man by George Bernard plays in which the star part is resulting hybrid is effortlessly Shaw, Copenhagen by Michael unarguably female. Rosalind is enjoyable. We easily fall under Frayn, Educating Rita by Willy one of his most fully rounded and its spell, and have no trouble Russell, God of Carnage by beguiling characters, with the suspending our disbelief when Yasmina Reza, A Doll’s House by amusing complication that the the Fairy Queen falls passionately Henrik Ibsen, in a new version by role would originally have been in love with a country bumpkin Frank McGuinness, taken by a boy actor who, in the wearing an ass's head. It is one Shakespeare’s Will by Vern course of the action, dresses up of Shakespeare's most enduringly Thiessen and Oleanna by David as a man who then pretends to popular comedies. Mamet. She also directed a be a woman. Note: Julian Curry’s book national tour of Oleanna for Shakespeare on Stage Volume 2 Theatre Tours International. The plot follows Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's includes an interview with Sara Other recent work includes: a court, accompanied by her Kestelman on playing Titania/ musical version of Bernarda Alba, cousin Celia and the clown Hippolyita in Peter Brook’s Patrick Marber's Closer at Touchstone, to find safety in the legendary production of Vienna's English Theatre, As You Forest of Arden. There she finds the play. Like It, The Cherry Orchard and love with Orlando and Uncle Vanya for Drama Studio encounters memorable The magnificently restored Teatro Cagli is managed by one of Shakespeare in Italy’s founders, Sandro Pascucci. It is located behind the Town Hall and is a perfect Italian 19th century opera house complete with an orchestra pit. Dating from the 1870s it can seat 500 people but retains a remarkable intimacy and charm. There are more period theatres in Le Marche than in any other part of Italy. It is called the region of 100 theatres. It is not unusual to visit a small town, such as Cagli, or village with the most magnificent theatre hidden amongst its buildings. The town of Cagli is set against a backdrop of some of the highest peaks in the northern Marche. It has welcomed strangers for more than 2,000 years—since the days when ancient Rome made it an important staging post on the Via Flaminia, one of the oldest and most important Roman roads in Europe. Today it still retains its Roman grid plan, all roads leading to a proper central square, complete with a florid fountain, a steely medieval town hall, and huddles of elderly men deeply engrossed in chatter. Gubbio Amphitheatre Above is the amphitheatre at Gubbio which we will visit. It was constructed around 20 BC from large blocks of limestone. It has two orders of arcades, some of which are still remaining. When it was built it would have held up to 6,000 spectators and was amongst the largest examples of its kind. The hand of the great quattrocento military architect Francesco di Giorgio Martini is unmistakable in the dramatic oval torrione, or tower to the west of the piazza, all that remains of the citadel that Duke Federico da Montefeltro had built above Cagli towards the end of the 15th Century. You can search for the fresco of the Madonna and Child with Saints by Giovanni Santi—it is to be found in the church of San Domenico near the hospital. Visitors are just as happy wandering along the medieval streets looking out for some of the many aristocratic palazzi that abound or enjoying a drink at a table outside one of the pleasant bars on the main square - a great place to watch Italian daily life.