New Places

 New Places: Shakespeare and Civic Creativity documents and analyses the different ways in which a range of innovative projects take Shakespeare out into the world beyond education and the theatre. Mixing critical reflection on the social value of Shakespeare with new creative work in different forms and idioms, the volume triumphantly shows that Shakespeare can make a real contribution to contemporary civic life. Highlights include: Garrick's 1769 Shakespeare ode, its revival in 2016, and a devised performance interpretation of it; the full text of Carol Ann Duffy's A Shakespeare Masque (set to music by Sally Beamish); a new Shakespearean libretto inspired by Wagner; an exploration of the civic potential of new Shakespeare opera and ballet; a fresh Shakespeare-inspired poetic liturgy, including commissions by major British poets; a production of The Merchant of Venice marking the 500th anniversary of the Venetian Jewish Ghetto; and a remaking of Pericles as a response to the global migrant crisis.

Review: Demonstrating how Shakespeare remains relevant in the 21st century, this book is valuable for situating Shakespeare in non-traditional settings. Summing Up: Highly recommended. * CHOICE *

At the crest of a coming wave of creative engagements with Shakespeare, New Places re-sets the prepositions that situate us to his plays. Less interested in finding the meanings "in" or "around" Shakespeare, New Places makes meaning "through" and "with" his works, engaging communities outside the academy and rehearsing new perceptual possibilities for the place of art in the twenty-first century. -- Paul Menzer, Professor of Shakespeare and Performance, Mary Baldwin University, USA.

Taking its cue from the happy accident of Shakespeare's historic address in Stratford-upon-Avon -a house called 'New Place' - this exuberant collection of essays finds Shakespeare more recently resident in dozens of other 'new places'. 'Civic Shakespeare' is found amongst singers, dancers, masquers, refugees, schoolchildren,in a convent-turned-Sufi Centre, in the Venetian Ghetto and amongst townspeople. -- Carol Chillington Rutter, NTF, Professor of Shakespeare and Performance Studies, Department of English and Comparative Literary Studies, University of Warwick, UK. 

 

List of Illustrations List of Contributors Preface by Paul Edmondson Introduction by Ewan Fernie Part I: After Garrick 1. Reviving Garrick (including An ode upon dedicating a building, and erecting a statue, to Shakespeare, at Stratford upon Avon by David Garrick) by Michael Dobson 2. A Shakespeare Masque: Reflections on an Anniversary Commission with Sally Beamish and Carol Ann Duffy (including the words of A Shakespeare Masque by Carol Ann Duffy) by Paul Edmondson 3. Shakespeare Unbard: Negotiating Civic Shakespeare by Hester Bradley and Richard O'Brien Part II: New Places; New Forms 4. Communities in the Theatre and in the World: Three Ballets and a Masque by David Fuller 5. Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love: A Liturgy for Voices based on 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' by Paul Fiddes and Andrew Taylor 6. The Marina Project by Katharine Craik and Ewan Fernie Part III: New Places: Europe 7. Shakespeare's German Place: Weimar and the Jubilees, 1864/2014 by Tobias Doering 8. On Romeo and Juliet and Civic Crisis in Contemporary Verona by Silvia Bigliazzi 9. Shylock in the Thinking Machine: Civic Shakespeare and the Future of Venice by Shaul Bassi 10. Mastersinger Shakespeare! by Paul Edmondson Part III: New Places: North America 11. New Places for Civic Shakespeare in America by Katherine Scheil 12. Shakespeare and Theatre at the Civic Intersection by David Ruiter Afterword by Graham Holderness Bibliography Notes Index