Covering Shakespeare

David Weston has spent a lifetime acting in Shakespeare’s plays, and has been directed by the likes of Sir Peter Hall, Trevor Nunn and Michael Croft. Chosen as Ian McKellen’s understudy in the RSC’s King Lear, David toured the world and recorded his experiences in his diary, which became the award-winning Covering McKellen: An Understudy’s Tale, called ‘Salty, evocative and informative’ by the Daily Mail. It went on to win the prestigious S.T.R. Theatre Book of the Year Prize for 2011. In Covering Shakespeare Weston goes even further, tracing his sixty-two year association with the Bard. He has appeared in twenty-nine of the thirty-seven plays, many several times, and has worked with all the major companies to the outmost limits of the Fringe, from Hollywood to Hong Kong, with the great, the mediocre and the forgotten. He has stories and reminiscences about them all, as well as advice for young actors written in his inimitable style. The book also contains a synopsis of each play and table outlining the total number of lines per character in each of Shakespeare’s plays, rediscovered from an 1889 edition of Evenings with Shakespeare: A Handbook to the Study of His Works. Shortlisted for the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography 2015

What does it mean to teach Shakespeare with purpose? It means freeing teachers from the notion that teaching Shakespeare means teaching everything, or teaching "Western Civilisation†? and universal themes. Instead, this invigorating new book equips teachers to enable student-centred discovery of these complex texts. Because Shakespeare's plays are excellent vehicles for many topics -history, socio-cultural norms and mores, vocabulary, rhetoric, literary tropes and terminology, performance history, performance strategies - it is tempting to teach his plays as though they are good for teaching everything. This lens-free approach, however, often centres the classroom on the teacher as the expert and renders Shakespeare's plays as fixed, determined, and dead. Teaching Shakespeare with Purpose shows teachers how to approach Shakespeare's works as vehicles for collaborative exploration, to develop intentional frames for discovery, and to release the texts from over-determined interpretations. In other words, this book presents how to teach Shakespeare's plays as living, breathing, and evolving texts.

Learn the entire works of one of the greatest writers of the English language in The Shakespeare Book. Part of the fascinating Big Ideas series, this book tackles tricky topics and themes in a simple and easy to follow format. Learn about the works of William Shakespeare in this overview guide, great for beginners looking to learn and experts wishing to refresh their knowledge alike! The Shakespeare Book brings a fresh and vibrant take on the topic through eye-catching graphics and diagrams to immerse yourself in. This captivating book will broaden your understanding of Shakespeare, with: - Every play and poem from Shakespeare’s canon, including lost plays and less well-known works of poetry - Packed with facts, charts, timelines and graphs to help explain core concepts - A visual approach to big subjects with striking illustrations and graphics throughout - Easy to follow text makes topics accessible for people at any level of understanding The Shakespeare Book is the perfect introduction to the entire canon of Shakespeare’s plays, sonnets, and other poetry, aimed at adults with an interest in the subject and students wanting to gain more of an overview. Here you’ll discover the complete works, from The Comedy of Errors, to the great tragedies of Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Macbeth. Your Shakespeare Questions, Simply Explained This is a brilliant, innovative exploration of the entire canon of Shakespeare plays, sonnets, and other poetry with detailed plot summaries and a full analysis of the major characters and themes. If you thought it was difficult to learn about the works of one of the greatest writers in the English language, The Shakespeare Book presents key information in a simple layout. Every work is covered, from the comedies of Twelfth Night and As You Like It to the tragedies of Julius Caesar and Hamlet, with easy-to-understand graphics and illustrations bringing the themes, plots, characters, and language of Shakespeare to life. The Big Ideas Series With millions of copies sold worldwide, The Shakespeare Book is part of the award-winning Big Ideas series from DK. The series uses striking graphics along with engaging writing, making big topics easy to understand.

This major new complete edition of Shakespeare's works combines accessibility with the latest scholarship. Each play and collection of poems is preceded by a substantial introduction that looks at textual and literary-historical issues. The texts themselves have been scrupulously edited and are accompanied by same-page notes and glossaries. Particular attention has been paid to the design of the book to ensure that this first new edition of the twenty-first century is both attractive and approachable.

Under an alphabetical list of relevant terms, names and concepts, the book reviews current knowledge of the character and operation of theatres in Shakespeare's time, with an explanation of their origins>

Shakespeare's history plays make up nearly a third of his corpus and feature iconic characters like Falstaff, the young Prince Hal, and Richard III--as well as unforgettable scenes like the storming of Harfleur. But these plays also present challenges for teachers, who need to help students understand shifting dynastic feuds, manifold concepts of political power, and early modern ideas of the body politic, kingship, and nationhood. Part 1 of this volume, "Materials," introduces instructors to the many editions of the plays, the wealth of contextual and critical writings available, and other resources. Part 2, "Approaches," contains essays on topics as various as masculinity and gender, using the plays in the composition classroom, and teaching the plays through Shakespeare's own sources, film, television, and the Web. The essays help instructors teach works that are poetically and emotionally rich as well as fascinating in how they depict Shakespeare's vision of his nation's past and present.

A social history of Renaissance England that raises the curtain on the cultural influences that inspired Shakespeare’s plays. How did it feel to hear Macbeth’s witches chant of “double, double toil and trouble” at a time when magic and witchcraft were as real as anything science had to offer? How were justice and forgiveness understood by the audience who first watched King Lear; how were love and romance viewed by those who first saw Romeo and Juliet? In England in the Age of Shakespeare, Jeremy Black takes readers on a tour of life in the streets, homes, farms, churches, and palaces of the Bard’s era. Panning from play to audience and back again, Black shows how Shakespeare's plays would have been experienced and interpreted by those who paid to see them. From the dangers of travel to the indignities of everyday life in teeming London, Black explores the jokes, political and economic references, and small asides that Shakespeare’s audiences would have recognized. These moments of recognition often reflected the audience’s own experiences of what it was to, as Hamlet says, “grunt and sweat under a weary life.” Black’s clear and sweeping approach seeks to reclaim Shakespeare from the ivory tower and make the plays’ histories more accessible to the public for whom the plays were always intended.

For years scholars and others have been trying to out Shakespeare as an ardent Calvinist, a crypto-Catholic, a Puritan-baiter, a secularist, or a devotee of some hybrid faith. In Religion Around Shakespeare, Peter Kaufman sets aside such speculation in favor of considering the historical and religious context surrounding his work. Employing extensive archival research, he aims to assist literary historians who probe the religious discourses, characters, and events that seem to have found places in Shakespeare’s plays and to aid general readers or playgoers developing an interest in the plays’ and playwright’s religious contexts: Catholic, conformist, and reformist. Kaufman argues that sermons preached around Shakespeare and conflicts that left their marks on literature, law, municipal chronicles, and vestry minutes enlivened the world in which (and with which) he worked and can enrich our understanding of the playwright and his plays.