Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company
Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company

Author: Colin Chambers

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2004-02-24

Total Pages: 277

ISBN-13: 1134616317

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This is the inside story of the Royal Shakespeare Company - a running historical critique of a major national institution and its location within British culture, as related by a writer who is uniquely placed to tell the tale. It describes what happened to a radical theatrical vision and explores British society's inability to sustain that vision. Spanning four decades and four artistic directors, Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company is a multi-layered chronicle that traces the company's history, offers investigation into its working methods, its repertoire, its people and its politics, and considers what the future holds for this bastion of high culture now in crisis. Inside the Royal Shakespeare Company is compelling reading for anyone who wishes to explore behind the scenes and consider the changing role of theatre in modern cultural life. It offers a timely analysis of the fight for creative expression within any artistic or cultural organisation, and a vital document of our times.

Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company
Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company

Author: John Wyver

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2019-06-27

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1350006602

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No theatre company has been involved in such a broad range of adaptations for television and cinema as the Royal Shakespeare Company. Starting with Richard III filmed in the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre before World War One, the RSC's accomplishments continue today with highly successful live cinema broadcasts. The Wars of the Roses (BBC, 1965), Peter Brook's film of King Lear (1971), Channel 4's epic version of Nicholas Nickleby (1982) and Hamlet with David Tennant (BBC, 2009) are among their most iconic adaptations. Many other RSC productions live on as extracts in documentaries, as archival recordings, in trailers and in other fragmentary forms. Screening the Royal Shakespeare Company explores this remarkable history of collaborations between stage and screen and considers key questions about adaptation that concern all those involved in theatre, film and television. John Wyver is a broadcasting historian and the producer of RSC Live from Stratford-upon-Avon, and is uniquely well-placed to provide a vivid account of the company's television and film productions. He contributes an award-winning practitioner's insight into screen adaptation's numerous challenges and rich potential.

Shakespeare's Authentic Performance Texts
Shakespeare's Authentic Performance Texts

Author: Graham Watts

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-01-24

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 1476618720

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When we pick up a copy of a Shakespeare play, we assume that we hold in our hands an original record of his writing. We don't. Present-day printings are an editor's often subjective version of the script. Around 25 percent of any Shakespeare play will have been altered, and this creates an enormous amount of confusion. The only authentic edition of Shakespeare's works is the First Folio, published by his friends and colleagues in 1623. This volume makes the case for printing and staging the plays as set in the First Folio, which preserved actor cues that helped players understand and perform their roles. The practices of modern editors are critiqued. Also included are sections on analyzing and acting the text, how a complex character can be created using the First Folio, and a director's approach to rehearsing Shakespeare with various exercises for both professional and student actors. In conclusion, all of the findings are applied to Measure for Measure.

Shakespeare in the Theatre: Trevor Nunn
Shakespeare in the Theatre: Trevor Nunn

Author: Russell Jackson

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2018-11-15

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1474289592

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Sir Trevor Nunn is one of the most versatile and accomplished directors in the English-speaking theatre. This book examines his achievements as a director of Shakespeare within the wider context of debates on the cultural politics of Britain's theatrical institutions in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. His approach has been marked by the combination of close textual analysis with inventive theatricality, in performance spaces ranging from the large stages of the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre to the intimacy of the companies' studio theatres. The principal focus of the book is on Nunn's work as director of Shakespeare during his artistic directorship of the RSC and the NT. The four core chapters focus in detail on major productions that can be said to have challenged and changed perceptions of the plays, including The Winter's Tale (RSC, 1969), the 'Roman Plays' season (RSC, 1972) and All's Well That Ends Well (RSC, 1982), and the studio productions of Macbeth (RSC 1976), Othello (RSC, 1989) and The Merchant of Venice (NT, 1999). The study draws on archive material, as well as reviews and other published commentary, including that of actors who have worked with him.