  |
|
|
|
Young People and ShakespeareThe Royal Shakespeare Comapny's First Youth EnsembleOn the 22nd of August a very special rendition of William Shakespeare's A Midsummer Nights Dream will be performed at the RSC's Courtyard Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon
A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be performed by the Royal Shakespeare Company’s first ever Youth Ensemble made up of 22 young people, aged between 13-18 years, from across England. The students will form an acting company in Stratford-upon-Avon, living and working in the RSC's home town for two and half weeks in August. There they will have the opportunity to meet members of the RSC acting company - including members of the current A Midsummer Night's Dream company. They will also have workshop sessions with guest practitioners, including BBC television and radio presenter, Hardeep Singh Koli, who recently compered the RSC's Regional Schools Celebration in The Courtyard Theatre. Shakespeare in British EducationThe project is the culmination of work done by the RSC’s Education Programme, through which they created the RSC Learning Network with the aim of ensuring that all young people have a positive experience of Shakespeare at school. The Youth Ensemble has been drawn from participants in a more focused education project, the Learning and Performance Network. Schools who take part in the network embark on a three year structured partnership with the RSC. They become a co-ordinating school for their area, hosting INSET days, coordinating a regional festival and supporting and disseminating good practice to their partner schools. The Youth Ensemble is made up of young people from Secondary schools from nine of the regions of the country involved in the Learning and Performance Network. Through their schools’ engagement with the Network, these young people have developed a enthusiasm for Shakespeare in performance and the participants where chosen because of their performances and the passion displayed by them. A Midsummer Night’s DreamThe players of the Youth Ensemble will be performing a play written more than 400 years ago, it is estimated that it was written sometime in the 1590’s although the first record of the play was its entry into the Register of the Stationers Company on 8 October 1600 by the bookseller Thomas Fisher, who published the first quarto edition later that year. It is a play of interlinking plots that has left many academics debating not only the obvious themes of the play, which include love and identity but also possible underlying themes such as sexual ambiguity, religion and feminism. The play is one of Shakespeare’s comedies, although this word has a different connotation to today’s use. It generally means that the outcome of the play i.e. a happy ending as opposed to a tragic one. The play is currently running as a part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Summer Season at Stratford-upon-Avon in the Courtyard Theatre where RSC Chief Associate Director Gregory Doran has revived his hugely successful 2005 production originally staged at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre. The cast features Peter de Jersey, whose previous work for the RSC includes Evander in A New Way to Please You, Antiochus in Believe What You Will and Macro in Sejanus: His Fall. Andrea Harris, who plays Titania, recently played Calpurnia in To Kill a Mockingbird for West Yorkshire Playhouse and Birmingham Rep and Mark Hadfield also makes a return to the RSC to play Puck. His last role for the company was as Chaucer in Gregory Doran’s production of The Canterbury Tales in the Swan Theatre and on tour. Full details of both productions can be found on the RSC website www.rsc.org.uk
The copyright of the article Young People and Shakespeare in Shakespearean Theatre is owned by Tony Butcher. Permission to republish Young People and Shakespeare in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
|
|
|
|
