I, MALVOLIO Was Recognized by the White House in 2014 with the National Arts and Humanities Youth CITY of CHICAGO Program Award

Total Page:16

File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb

I, MALVOLIO Was Recognized by the White House in 2014 with the National Arts and Humanities Youth CITY of CHICAGO Program Award Chicago will take center stage in 2016 with CST is a leading international theater company, SHAKESPEARE 400 CHICAGO, as more than 1,000 known for extraordinary productions; unlocking local and international artists create a global Shakespeare’s work for educators and students; BARBARA GAINES CRISS HENDERSON and serving as Chicago’s cultural ambassador Artistic Director Executive Director celebration of Shakespeare like no other in the Carl and Marilynn Thoma through its World’s Stage Series. Throughout Endowed Chair world. During this landmark year, Shakespeare will 2016, CST is spearheading the international arts be alive on our stages, in our schools and across and culture festival, Shakespeare 400 Chicago, RICK BOYNTON, Creative Producer GARY GRIFFIN, Associate Artistic Director our neighborhoods. This international festival will a citywide celebration of the playwright’s 400-year legacy. CST serves as a partner in help reaffirm Chicago’s role as a global destination literacy to Chicago Public Schools, working alongside English teachers to help struggling presents for cultural tourism. In 2016, the enterprising spirit readers connect with Shakespeare in the classroom, and bringing his text to life on stage for 40,000 students every year. And each summer, 30,000 families and audience of Shakespeare meets the entrepreneurial spirit of members of all ages welcome the free Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks tour into their Chicago. I want to thank everyone who is working neighborhoods across the far north, west and south sides of the city. Reflecting the From the United Kingdom hard to ensure that it will be a great success. global city it calls home, CST is the leading producer of international work in Chicago, and has toured its plays to Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and the Middle Tim Crouch East. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Barbara Gaines and Executive Director Criss Henderson, CST was the recipient of a Regional Theatre Tony Award. Its work has been recognized internationally with three of London’s prestigious Laurence Olivier Awards, and by the Chicago theater community with over 80 Joseph Jefferson Awards Rahm Emanuel, Mayor for Artistic Excellence. CST’s work with Chicago Public School students and teachers I, MALVOLIO was recognized by the White House in 2014 with the National Arts and Humanities Youth CITY OF CHICAGO Program Award. Chicago Shakespeare is proud to present SHAKESPEARE 400 CHICAGO, Chicago Shakespeare Theater Staff a global celebration made possible by an unprecedented collaboration of BARBARA GAINES CRISS HENDERSON Artistic Director Executive Director Chicago institutions. This yearlong festival both showcases the collective Carl and Marilynn Thoma impact of our city’s world-class cultural community and invites hundreds of Endowed Chair DOTTIE BRIS-BOIS JoHANNAH HAIL artists from across the globe to make Chicago their stage in 2016. Embracing ARTISTIC Director of Special Gifts Production Coordinator PROPERTIES RICK BOYNTON HILARY ODOM SEAN KATHLEEN ROCKE CASSANDRA WESTOVER the audacious spirit of our eponymous playwright, the year ahead will Creative Producer Director of Corporate and Production Office Manager Properties Supervisor feature an astonishing array of artists and thinkers. Shakespeare will come GARY GRIFFIN Foundation Relations SARAH GEIS ERIN OHLAND Associate Artistic Director KRISTEN CARUSO Production Management Apprentice Assistant Properties Supervisor to life across disciplines, through inspirational acts of theater, dance, music, BOB MASON Advancement Manager/ LISA GRIEBEL Artistic Associate/Casting Director Board Liaison Properties Carpenter spectacle—even cuisine. It’s a celebration 400 years in the making. A bold HEATHER SCHMUCKER LAURA MIKULSKI STAGE MANAGEMENT DAN NURCZYK Associate Producer Advancement Manager / Properties Crew Head VIP Concierge DEBORAH ACKER undertaking, true to the spirit of our global city and the greatest playwright of DOREEN SAYEGH Production Stage Manager/ Festival Producer, ERIN STRICK Associate Producer Institutional Relations Coordinator all time. This is Shakespeare 400 Chicago. Come play your part. Shakespeare 400 Chicago DENNIS J. CONNERS OPERATIONS/FACILITIES DANIEL J. HESS SAMUEL OSTROWSKI Production Stage Manager SUSAN KNILL Special Projects Coordinator Facilities and Operations Director Company Manager MARY HUNGERFORD, AEA LAURA DURHAM DAVE TOPOROV CST Stage Manager JEANNE DEVORE Casting Assistant Annual Fund Coordinator Technology Manager JACK EIDSON CAITLYN DeROSA DANIEL LOPEZ Assistant to the Creative Producer Donor Relations and Research Facilities Assistant Coordinator SCENERY SALVADOR F. GARZA ROBERT L. WILSON ELLIOTT LACEY Assistant Company Manager CAMILLE HOWARD Assistant Technical Director Custodial Supervisor Campaign Coordinator KATE LEGGETT BRIAN COIL DWAYNE BREWER Barbara Gaines Criss Henderson Doreen Sayegh Casting Intern Stage Crew Head MARIBEL CUEVAS MARKETING MATTHEW BLACK OCTAVIOUS MOODY Artistic Director Executive Director Festival Producer Stage Crew Apprentice RICHARD TENNY ALIDA SZABO Custodial Assistants Carl and Marilynn Thoma EDUCATION Director of Audience Development Endowed Chair MARILYN J. HALPERIN Director of Education and JULIE STANTON Marketing Director COSTUMES Communications RYAN MAGNUSON TICKETING, GUEST Ray and Judy McCaskey CATHY TAYLOR Costume Shop Manager CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER Endowed Chair Public Relations Consultant SERVICES AND EVENTS CATHY TANTILLO RACHAEL SWANN JASON HARRINGTON HANNAH KENNEDY Costume Design Assistant Education Outreach Manager Public Relations Associate Box Office and Guest Services Manager REBECCA DOROSHUK MOLLY TRUGLIA JUDY McCLOSKEY MAKEDA COHRAN Costume Shop Assistant/ Events Manager Learning Programs Manager Digital Communications Assistant Rentals Manager PHIL BRANKIN ROXANNA CONNER JESSICA CONNOR MELISSA BOCHAT Education Associate Marketing Assistant–Advertising Crafts Supervisor BLANCA HERNANDEZ ABIGAIL ARMATO and Publications SCOTT KLOOSTERMAN EMILY OWENS Front of House Supervisors COURTNEY QUINN KENNETH KEACHER Costume Shop Apprentice Education Interns Marketing Assistant/Office JOHN KUINIUS Administrator Concessions Supervisor ADMINISTRATION JENNIFER JONES ELECTRICS BETSY BEAMS Marketing Coordinator ERIC BRANSON SHELLY GODEFRIN LINDA ORELLANA Lighting Supervisor Guest Services Team Leaders Director of Finance EMMA PERRIN MAGGIE WOLFE JOAN E. CLAUSSEN ADAM CIFARELLI DAN GRYCZA Marketing Interns Lighting Crew Head KYLE CORNELL Human Resources Director/ DJ CUMMINGS Finance Associate ANTHONY VEGA SHAKESPEARE Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks ALLISON DIAMOND 400 CHICAGO ALANA RYBAK Community and Audience SOUND MEL GILL Assistant Director of Finance LEAD SPONSORS Development Consultant JAMES SAVAGE KASS HAROUN ALYSSE HUNTER CLARA ROTTER-LAITMAN Sound Supervisor SHANA MEYERAND Accounting Manager Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks JOHNATHAN NIEVES Assistant Project Manager PALMER JANKENS SUPPORT FOR MOLLY BRIGGS Associate Sound Supervisor RICCI PRIOLETTI INTERNATIONAL Accounting Associate DEKKA HODGES CRISTY TROIA JACQUELINE POJASEK PROGRAMMING JILL FENSTERMAKER ALEXANDER FELLOWS Sound Crew Head JASMINE SAWYER Executive Assistant Chicago Shakespeare in the Parks EMILY STEWARD Interns SHARAINA TURNAGE KEELY HADDAD-NULL MAJOR 2015/16 SEASON SUPPORTERS SARAH LAEUCHLI WIGS AND MAKE-UP TRISTIEN WINFREE KEVIN SPELLMAN PRODUCTION MELISSA VEAL LAUREN WIMMER Arts Leadership Fellows Head of Wigs and Make-up CLAIRE UNGER CHRIS PLEVIN Director of Production JESSIE “JAX” CONTRERAS VIOLET VARA Wig and Make-up Assistant Guest Services Associates JEFF WILLIAMS The Harold and Mimi ADVANCEMENT Associate Director of Production CHRIS SIMEK SHARON AND TOM McLEAN Steinberg Charitable Trust E. BROOKE FLANAGAN Director of Institutional Advancement Saints’ Volunteer Usher Coordinators Lead individual and foundation support provided by Eric’s Tazmanian Angel Fund, Raymond and Judy McCaskey, Burton X. and Sheli Z. Rosenberg, Timothy R. Schwertfeger and Gail Waller, Carl and Marilynn Thoma and Donna Van Eekeren Foundation. Note from Tim Crouch I, Malvolio SUMMER + FALL 2016 HIGHLIGHTS JUNE 2-5, 2016 I, Malvolio is the fourth in a series of solo plays AT CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE I’ve written looking at things through the eyes of Writer + TIM CROUCH + Shakespeare’s lesser characters. The series started Performer AROUND THE CITY with I, Caliban in 2003. Then came I, Peaseblossom and Co-director I, Banquo. In 2012 I wrote and directed I, Cinna (the poet) ANDY SMITH to run alongside a production of Julius Caesar by the Co-director KARL JAMES Royal Shakespeare Company. Set Designer GRAEME GILMOUR Unlike these plays that were all written for young CST Stage Manager audiences, from the outset I, Malvolio was designed MARY HUNGERFORD* to span a much broader age range: Brighton Festival commissioned a late- Co-commissioned by night adult version of the play that, in the end, turned out to be very similar to Brighton Festival and Singapore the child-friendly version. The work responds to the people in the room. If they Arts Festival CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE Pritzker Military Museum & Library GARY BUSEY’S are more mature in their philosophical and scatological tastes, then the piece IN THE PARKS TWELFTH NIGHT SHAKESPEARE AND ONE-MAN HAMLET changes accordingly. And if they are adults, it changes again. I, Malvolio premiered in May 2010 JULY 14–AUGUST 14—FREE FOR ALL THE CITIZEN SOLDIER JULY 12–17 at Dorothy Stringer High School, by William Shakespeare ALL YEAR LONG co-created + directed by Michole
Recommended publications
  • Teacher Resource Pack I, Malvolio
    TEACHER RESOURCE PACK I, MALVOLIO WRITTEN & PERFORMED BY TIM CROUCH RESOURCES WRITTEN BY TIM CROUCH unicorntheatre.com timcrouchtheatre.co.uk I, MALVOLIO TEACHER RESOURCES INTRODUCTION Introduction by Tim Crouch I played the part of Malvolio in a production of Twelfth Night many years ago. Even though the audience laughed, for me, it didn’t feel like a comedy. He is a desperately unhappy man – a fortune spent on therapy would only scratch the surface of his troubles. He can’t smile, he can’t express his feelings; he is angry and repressed and deluded and intolerant, driven by hate and a warped sense of self-importance. His psychiatric problems seem curiously modern. Freud would have had a field day with him. So this troubled man is placed in a comedy of love and mistaken identity. Of course, his role in Twelfth Night would have meant something very different to an Elizabethan audience, but this is now – and his meaning has become complicated by our modern understanding of mental illness and madness. On stage in Twelfth Night, I found the audience’s laughter difficult to take. Malvolio suffers the thing we most dread – to be ridiculed when he is at his most vulnerable. He has no resolution, no happy ending, no sense of justice. His last words are about revenge and then he is gone. This, then, felt like the perfect place to start with his story. My play begins where Shakespeare’s play ends. We see Malvolio how he is at the end of Twelfth Night and, in the course of I, Malvolio, he repairs himself to the state we might have seen him in at the beginning.
    [Show full text]
  • Encountering Shakespeare with Tim Crouch
    “This is you”: Encountering Shakespeare with Tim Crouch by Sara Soncini By general consensus, Tim Crouch is one of the most innovative theatre-makers to have emerged on the UK scene during the last decade or so. His work has attracted considerable critical attention both nationally and internationally, giving rise to a sizeable and ever expanding body of academic analysis. Starting with his multi-award- winning production of An Oak Tree (2005), Crouch’s plays have toured extensively and they are regularly performed in translation in a wide range of European countries, where they have been invariably hailed as a token of the vigour and vibrancy of British new writing. The fact that roughly one half of Tim Crouch’s dramatic output to date is a reworking of Shakespearean sources is a telling indication of the continued centrality of his theatrical voice on the 21st-century stage. Yet while critics usually remark upon the continuities – in terms of objectives, methods and techniques – between Crouch’s Shakespeare project and the rest of his production (see e.g. Rebellato 2016), the specific cultural meaning of his adaptations as a form of creative engagement with Shakespeare has only been cursorily addressed in the available scholarship. This is arguably a consequence of the particular slant of the project and its perceived specialized nature. Now a cycle of five solo plays, Tim Crouch’s I, Shakespeare was initially instigated by a commission from the Brighton Festival to introduce Shakespeare to a young audience. The brief resulted in I, Caliban (2003), a retelling of Saggi/Ensayos/Essais/Essays Will forever young! Shakespeare & Contemporary Culture – 11/2017 22 The Tempest from the point of view of Shakespeare’s outcast for children aged 8+.
    [Show full text]
  • Book of Abstracts
    ABSTRACTS AND BIOGRAPHIES Thursday, October 11, 2018 9.45 PANEL: Across Languages Chair: Claire Hélie (Lille University) 1. Maggie Rose (Milan University) Importing new British plays to Italy. Rethinking the role of the theatre translator Over the last three decades I have worked as a co-translator and a cultural mediator between the UK and Italy, bringing plays by Alan Bennett, Edward Bond, Caryl Churchill, Claire Dowie, David Greig, Kwame Kwei-Armah, Hanif Kureishi, Liz Lochhead, Sabrina Mahfouz, Rani Moorthy, among others,to the Italian stage. Bearing in mind a complex web of Italo-British relations, I will discuss how my strategies of cultural mediation have evolved over the years as a response to significant changes in the two theatre systems. I will explore why the task of finding a publisher and a producer\director for some British authors has been more difficult than for others, the stage and critical success of certain dramatists in Italy more limited. I will look specifically at the Italian ‘journeys’ of the following writers: Caryl Churchill and my co-translation of Top Girls (1986) and A Mouthful of Birds, Edward Bond and my co-translation of The War Plays for the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin and Alan Bennett and my co-translation of The History Boys at Teatro Elfo Pucini from 2011-3013, at Teatro Elfo Puccini and national tours. Maggie Rose teaches British Theatre Studies and Performance at the University of Milan and spends part of the year in the UK for her writing and research. She is a member of the Scottish Society of Playwrights and her plays have been performed in the UK and in Italy.
    [Show full text]
  • David Greig's Theatre
    THE “POLETHICS” OF THE MEDIATED/TIZED SPECTATOR IN THE GLOBAL-TECHNOLOGIZED AGE: DAVID GREIG’S THEATRE Verónica Rodríguez Universidad de Barcelona Abstract: Contemporary Scottish playwright David Greig’s dramaturgy has been concerned with the massive changes wrought across the world by neoliberal globalization in the last two decades. A political triple turn comprising ethics, the media and the spectator, and a shift between the notion “‘mediatized’ reiterative ‘expectator’” to “mediated performing spectator” within the “polethic” frame of ‘relationality’ in Greig’s works are argued in this article. It is further argued that the plays examined (Damascus, The American Pilot, Brewers Fayre and Fragile) use productive strategies like diffusion, reversibility and interchangeability, which foreground the asymmetries of the global/technologized age “polethically” mediating the global performing spectator. Key Words: Globalization, David Greig, Media, Spectator, Ethics, Politics. Recibido: 18/07/2012 Aceptado: 05/09/2012 TRIPLE TURN: ETHICS, MEDIA & SPECTATORSHIP IN THE GLOBAL-TECHNOLOGIZED AGE In his short review of Michael Kustov’s Theatre@risk, David Greig states that “[t]he thrust of Kustow’s argument is that in a corporate, mediated, screened world the last public space – public in the true sense – is the theatre” (Glasgow Sunday Herald)1 adding that he shares “his passion and confidence that theatre is the necessary art form of the century” (ibid.). Greig’s theatre emerges as a creative response in this milieu by raising questions around the role of ethics, the media and spectators in the context of the global-technologized age when the idea of the nation is being 1 This review appears at the beginning of the 2000’s Methuen edition of Kustov’s Theare@risk.
    [Show full text]
  • Laughing out Young: Laughter in Evan Placey's Girls Like That And
    Miranda Revue pluridisciplinaire du monde anglophone / Multidisciplinary peer-reviewed journal on the English- speaking world 19 | 2019 Rethinking Laughter in Contemporary Anglophone Theatre Laughing Out Young: Laughter in Evan Placey’s Girls Like That and Other Plays for Teenagers (2016) Claire Hélie Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/20064 DOI: 10.4000/miranda.20064 ISSN: 2108-6559 Publisher Université Toulouse - Jean Jaurès Printed version Date of publication: 7 October 2019 Electronic reference Claire Hélie, “Laughing Out Young: Laughter in Evan Placey’s Girls Like That and Other Plays for Teenagers (2016)”, Miranda [Online], 19 | 2019, Online since 09 October 2019, connection on 16 February 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/miranda/20064 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ miranda.20064 This text was automatically generated on 16 February 2021. Miranda is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Laughing Out Young: Laughter in Evan Placey’s Girls Like That and Other Plays... 1 Laughing Out Young: Laughter in Evan Placey’s Girls Like That and Other Plays for Teenagers (2016) Claire Hélie 1 Evan Placey1 is a Canadian-British playwright who writes for young audiences; but unlike playwrights such as Edward Bond, Dennis Kelly or Tim Crouch, he writes for young audiences only. Some of his plays target young children, like WiLd! (2016), the monologue of an 8-year-old boy with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder), other young adults, like Consensual (2015), which explores the grey area between rape and consent. His favourite audience remain teenagers and four of the plays he wrote for them were collected in Girls Like That and Other Plays for Teenagers in 2016.
    [Show full text]
  • Rewriting Shakespeare's Plays for and by the Contemporary Stage 3 Becomes the Constant Object of Actors’ Investigation
    Rewriting Shakespeare’s Plays For and By the Contemporary Stage Rewriting Shakespeare’s Plays For and By the Contemporary Stage Edited by Michael Dobson and Estelle Rivier-Arnaud Rewriting Shakespeare’s Plays For and By the Contemporary Stage Edited by Michael Dobson and Estelle Rivier-Arnaud This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Michael Dobson, Estelle Rivier-Arnaud and contributors All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-8280-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-8280-4 TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ................................................................................... vii Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Meaning and Motivations for a Contemporary Appropriation of Shakespeare’s Drama PART ONE: The Rewriting Process under Scrutiny and its Stakes Chapter One ............................................................................................... 11 Unlearning Tradition: William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Jane Smiley’s and Jocelyn Moorhouse’s A Thousand Acres Anne-Kathrin Marquardt Chapter Two .............................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • Les Auteurs Dramatiques Anglais Contemporains À L'épreuve Des Pratiques Collaboratives
    Document generated on 10/02/2021 2:33 a.m. Tangence Les auteurs dramatiques anglais contemporains à l’épreuve des pratiques collaboratives Contemporary English playwrights’ testing of collaborative practices Séverine Ruset Questions d’auctorialité sur les scènes contemporaines Article abstract Number 121, 2019 Although the figure of the author remains retains significant authority in contemporary English theatre, which traditionally accords a place of choice to URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1070453ar new dramatic writing, it has been undermined since the early 21st century by DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1070453ar a notable increase in collaborative practices. Founded on an analysis of playwrights’ discourses regarding their role (as it falls to them, but also as they See table of contents lay claim to it), this article examines how these evolutions affect the status of authors within the English theatre world or, more precisely, the recognition and valorization system they belong to and whose outlines they help reshape through their positions. It focuses, notably, on the development of a Publisher(s) collaborative stance that is particularly evident in the will expressed by a Tangence growing number of authors not to relinquish their authority, but to share it a bit more, at least, with both their artistic collaborators and the spectators. ISSN 1189-4563 (print) 1710-0305 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Ruset, S. (2019). Les auteurs dramatiques anglais contemporains à l’épreuve des pratiques collaboratives. Tangence, (121), 81–102. https://doi.org/10.7202/1070453ar Tous droits réservés © Tangence, 2019 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online.
    [Show full text]
  • Skin-Hunger-Free-Sheet-Final.Pdf
    BY DANTE OR DIE The Covid-19 global pandemic has affected us all in We started delving into the biological phenomenon of skin profound ways that will continue to alter how we live hunger; learning how vital touch is to humanity. The way we with each other. The simple act of touching someone are touched from infancy, sets us up to receive and give has never had so much power. Brushing past someone touch in particular ways for our entire lives. Thank you to on the bus, a casual squeeze of a friend’s arm or an neuroscience Professor Francis McGlone at Liverpool John embrace with a loved one that you haven’t seen for Moores University for enlightening our process. months, all come with risk assessments. For those of us who create live performances, our ability to When we saw photographs of the plastic hug tunnels in share stories has been challenged in ways we could never Brazilian care homes last summer, the images struck a have imagined. As in-person experiences ground to a halt nerve. Hug tunnels are plastic curtains with attached and culture began to create new digital forms, we continued plastic arms, which allow two people to hug one another to crave reconnecting in a shared space. The creation safely. They enabled elderly people to hug their loved period began in September with the plan being to perform ones during the pandemic. We immediately said “There’s it in November – the quickest development process we’d a performance in that.” We shared stories from friends and ever undertaken.
    [Show full text]
  • England by Tim Crouch Co-Presented with Nathan Booth, Matt Seery & Metro Arts
    ENGLAND BY TIM CROUCH CO-PRESENTED WITH NATHAN BOOTH, MATT SEERY & METRO ARTS 19 - 29 APRIL 2017 Places and people blur. Brisbane, England, hotel, hospital, beyond. It’s a tour to the end of the world. NOTE FROM THE DIRECTOR ENGLAND by Tim Crouch is a playful, rebellious work. It’s mischievously difficult to define: a site-specific theatre work for galleries, comprised of two acts at either end of a stylistic spectrum. It gives no indication of set or lighting, no stage directions and no allocation of lines to specific characters or actors. It also refuses to ever let the number of characters match the number of performers ‘onstage’. In fact, it is clear on only one thing: that an audience and two performers meet one night in an art gallery. Here we are. With one foot firmly planted in the Metro Arts Gallery, ENGLAND steps through the very real (and beautiful) visual artworks around us, peering into the life of a dying woman on the other side of the world. The value of art and human life are pitched against each other, with the consequences yet to be seen. It has been a joy to navigate Tim’s endlessly rewarding script with Barbara, Steven and our staggeringly talented creative team, and to join Nathan Booth and Metro Arts in co-presenting this Queensland Premiere season. Thank you for joining us for this exhibition / this performance / this gallery tour through lives, across borders and beyond. We hope you enjoy. TIM CROUCH Tim is an OBIE award-winning British playwright and theatre maker.
    [Show full text]
  • Encountering Shakespeare with Tim Crouch
    “This is you”: Encountering Shakespeare with Tim Crouch by Sara Soncini By general consensus, Tim Crouch is one of the most innovative theatre-makers to have emerged on the UK scene during the last decade or so. His work has attracted considerable critical attention both nationally and internationally, giving rise to a sizeable and ever expanding body of academic analysis. Starting with his multi-award- winning production of An Oak Tree (2005), Crouch’s plays have toured extensively and they are regularly performed in translation in a wide range of European countries, where they have been invariably hailed as a token of the vigour and vibrancy of British new writing. The fact that roughly one half of Tim Crouch’s dramatic output to date is a reworking of Shakespearean sources is a telling indication of the continued centrality of his theatrical voice on the 21st-century stage. Yet while critics usually remark upon the continuities – in terms of objectives, methods and techniques – between Crouch’s Shakespeare project and the rest of his production (see e.g. Rebellato 2016), the specific cultural meaning of his adaptations as a form of creative engagement with Shakespeare has only been cursorily addressed in the available scholarship. This is arguably a consequence of the particular slant of the project and its perceived specialized nature. Now a cycle of five solo plays, Tim Crouch’s I, Shakespeare was initially instigated by a commission from the Brighton Festival to introduce Shakespeare to a young audience. The brief resulted in I, Caliban (2003), a retelling of Saggi/Ensayos/Essais/Essays Will forever young! Shakespeare & Contemporary Culture – 11/2017 22 The Tempest from the point of view of Shakespeare’s outcast for children aged 8+.
    [Show full text]
  • Michael Boyd, Malaya Bronnaya, and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre
    1 Architecture of Collaboration: Michael Boyd, Malaya Bronnaya, and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Andrew Blasenak Ohio State University hroughout the twentieth century, theatre artists have created thrust stages to challenge the stagecraft and actor- T audience dynamic of proscenium theatres.1 In 2011, the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) opened the most recent of these thrust stages: the redesigned Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The new design transformed a proscenium theatre into a thrust stage surrounded by 1040 seats. Rab Bennetts, the architect of the new Royal Shakespeare Theatre, noted the “uncanny” similarity between the 1989 excavation of the elongated Rose theatre foundations and the twelve-sided figure that “won out at the RSC.”2 The inspiration for the redesign, however, was not a desire to recover Shakespeare’s original theatre, as with Shakespeare’s Globe or The American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfrairs Playhouse. The new Royal Shakespeare Theatre, rather, was a part of Tyrone Guthrie’s legacy of theatre design that reflected his dissatisfaction with proscenium theatres like the 1932 Royal Shakespeare Theatre and his desire to revitalize the staging of Shakespeare’s plays. This new Royal Shakespeare Theatre also reflected RSC artistic director Michael Boyd’s commitment to ideals of ensemble that he observed in his training at the Malaya Bronnaya Theatre in Moscow with director Anatoly Efros. The redesigned Royal Shakespeare Theatre resembled an Elizabethan playhouse, but the inspiration for the redesign reflected Guthrie’s legacy
    [Show full text]
  • Dennis Kelly Abstracts and Biographies
    1 Lincoln School of Fine and Performing Arts International Playwriting Symposium 2017: Dennis Kelly Abstracts and Biographies KEYNOTE: Clare Finburgh, Goldsmiths Clare Finburgh is a Reader in European Theatre at Goldsmiths University of London. Clare has published widely on modern and contemporary European theatre and performance. Co- authored and co-edited volumes include Jean Genet (2012), Contemporary French Theatre and Performance (2011), and Jean Genet: Performance and Politics (2006). More recently her research reflects two of the most pressing political and social issues of the modern world: the ecological crisis, and global conflict. She has co-edited a volume of eco-critical essays, Rethinking the Theatre of the Absurd: Ecology, the Environment and the Greening of the Modern Stage (2015) and written a monograph on representations of war in recent British theatre: Watching War: Spectacles of Conflict on the Twenty-First-Century Stage (2017). “I’m gonna tap you in the face with this hammer”: Torture and the Ethics of Spectatorship in Dennis Kelly’s Works Mark in After the End (2005); Mark and Louise in Osama the Hero (2005); Miss Trunchbull in Matilda (2010); Arby and Lee in Utopia (2013-14)… Torturers, all. Torture is both threatened and carried out across Dennis Kelly’s entire oeuvre, from theatre playtexts to children’s musicals and television scripts. Given that all of Kelly’s works have been written during a geopolitical period of global conflict and counterinsurgency in which the use of torture and extrajudicial punishment by all sides has been exposed and debated, my paper will examine human suffering and humiliation, and the ethics of spectatorship.
    [Show full text]