Thank you for visiting our archive. Each performance submitted to our website will be explained in detail in its own blog post. You can choose to look through these posts in a variety of ways.
Cole Porter's popular Kiss Me Kate, a musical based on Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew was part of the Welsh National Opera's autumn Shakespeare400 Season. WNO Artistic Director David Pountney said ‘It's a marvellous opportunity for us to bring together enormously varied works which Shakespeare’s works have inspired.’
Read MoreThe UK Premiere of pianist and composer André Tchaikowsky's opera based on Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. The opera is a potent attack on prejudice, a deeply personal response to Tchaikowsky's experiences as a child in the Warsaw Ghetto, that was unperformed for three decades before David Pountney commissioned performances at the Bregenz Festival in Austria. The Welsh National Opera production was part of the Welsh National Opera's autumn Shakespeare400 Season. WNO Artistic Director Pountney said “It's a marvellous opportunity for us to bring together enormously varied works which Shakespeare’s works have inspired.”
Read More
Billed as Britain's first all-black Hamlet, Black Theatre Live's production was set in Denmark, a Black Empire of modern England, where an intelligent young student discovers the world he once knew has crumbled. Dramaturg Mark Norfolk used Peter Brook's stripped back Hamlet as his textual blueprint to get to the heart of the play, expanding it with new text to better explore both Hamlet and the play's female characters.
Read MoreVerdi described Macbeth as 'one of mankind's greatest creations'. His opera based on the play was part of the Welsh National Opera's autumn Shakespeare400 Season. WNO Artistic Director David Pountney said ‘It's a marvellous opportunity for us to bring together enormously varied works which Shakespeare’s works have inspired.’
Read More“For the 400th anniversary year of the death of William Shakespeare, we present diverse settings of his words from a range of composers in the atmospheric setting of Canongate Kirk”-- description from Fringe programme
Read More“China Anhui Opera Institute is proud to present A Terrified Soul, an exciting new adaptation of Macbeth. An eclectic fusion of contemporary and classical Chinese opera elements.” (description from the Fringe Programme)
Read More“Breaking… Shakespeare's alive! First ever interview. If Shakespeare were living and writing today, who would he be? A genius, an outsider, or just plain Bill? The Bard is very much alive and kicking, Hamlet's just opened (to mixed reviews!) and Will’s in the hot seat. Finally, we ask the questions that have kept us all guessing: Are these plays really his? Why the tragedies? What happened with Anne? Second guest: Sir Francis Bacon, Shakespeare's arch-rival. To be or not to be…? The answer’s not on Google. Festival premiere after hit run down under! 'Fantastic!' (James Valentine, ABC Sydney).” (description from the Fringe Programme)
Read More“England. 1918. A generation of men obliterated by the futility of war. Shakespeare's battle of wits set against the devastating backdrop of a country in mourning.” –description from the Fringe Programme
Read More“Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition! MCS Drama presents a brand new adaptation of King John, one of the least performed but most politically cutting and gravely comic of Shakespeare's history plays.” --description from Fringe programme. The performance was an abridged version of Shakespeare's play, and was also performed at Magdalen College School, Oxford.
Read More“Hamlet… and Ophelia. Cambridge University presents Shakespeare's most popular tragedy in 80 minutes. No diversion, no distraction. Witness the events unfurl before your eyes. Stripped to its roots, experience the truth of Shakespeare's play” --description from Fringe Programme
Read More
“This adaptation of Macbeth is told by Hecate, the goddess of crossroads, from her point of view. An unusual yet classical version of Shakespeare, performed by a single player.
(description from the Fringe Programme)
“Three sisters meet to enact Macbeth's fate. Their twisted prophecies transform him from a war hero into a paranoid tyrant in this brutal Shakespearean tragedy, set to the beat of Hecate's drum.”--description from Fringe Programme
Read More“Shakespeare smashes Homer's grand legend of the Trojan War while the unrivalled gallery of stars - Achilles, Agamemnon and Helen - lust and manipulate general destruction. Comedy, tragedy, history, satire, political danger at its most chilling.” –description from the Fringe programme
Read More“Six young cosplayers' friendships are tested as they prepare for an anime convention's scene contest from Madsummer! - a modern-day anime Midsummer Night's Dream. A comedy about finding your tribe and chasing your own mad dreams.” (description from Fringe Programme)
Read More“A stark, stylised performance of boundless ambition and the destruction it ultimately wreaks. Three actors, accompanied by a live DJ set and dynamic projections, create a dark and potent visual language. "Remarkable, essential viewing" (Herald).” --description from Fringe Programme.
Read More“From award-winning director Nicholas Barter comes a 1920s Chinese inspired version of Shakespeare’s much loved comedy performed by the Shanghai Theatre Academy. This production is a must-see and will reinvigorate one of Shakespeare’s best plays with traditional Chinese elements, including stunning colourful Chinese costumes and classical music played on the vertical bamboo flute.” --description from Fringe programme
Part of the official programme commemorating the 400th year anniversary of the deaths of Tang Xianzu and William Shakespeare.
"There's no place in this world for love." You are invited to discover the real power of opposed love, set on a tempestuous political background. An original study of this love story, played by a female company.” --description from Fringe Programme
Read More“Join the Beijing-based Chinese student actors for a wondrous morning of Shakespearian themed shadow theatre. Violet is sent to live in a provincial English town with relatives who own a small playhouse, specializing in productions of Shakespeare's works. She delights in sitting in the wings and watching the productions play out in shadows upon the back stage walls. She discovers that after the live productions end… the shadows play on. Thus begins Violet's magical journey through the fantastical realms populated by the timeless characters found in the works of William Shakespeare.” --description from Fringe Programme
Read MoreIn this adaptation of Twelfth Night, "Dan Jemmett’s playful, poetic production takes audiences back to the seaside of the 1970s, as Feste the clown breaks out his vinyls of Herb Alpert and Geoff Love on his vintage turntable, and five actors frantically slip between the play’s 18 roles in a farcical mix of music hall, pantomime and vaudeville, where boys play girls playing boys playing girls" (description from Festival Programme).
Read More“Set in 1953 against the backdrop of Queen Elizabeth's coronation, Lady Macbeth is presented as a picture-perfect housewife. However, behind closed suburbia doors she rebels against convention; successfully manipulating and driving her husband towards treason.” --description from Fringe programme
Read More
This research was supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
