The Flip Side: Shakespeare Turns 400!

News>The Flip Side

/By Hannah Antaki / Apr 19, 2016

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This week in the world of theatre: Shakespeare turns 400!

Well technically, he turns 452. But having died 400 years ago, on April 23, 1616, his legacy turns 400. Can you imagine making contributions to the world so important that 400 years after your death people are still studying, re-interpreting, and learning from your work? How many people have had such an impact? Michelangelo, whoever wrote the Kama Sutra, Jesus maybe… Darwin and Einstein will probably get there, but they still have a couple hundred years to go. Overall, not many people reach the 400-year milestone. And so, 2016 is Shakespeare’s year, and all over the world theatres are staging adaptations of his plays to honour him and his everlasting influence on the world of English theatre. The New York Times lists some of the performances here.

Further performances celebrating Shakespeare are taking place in:

• Gaborone, Botswana
• Washington D.C., USA
• Shanghai, China
• Chicago, USA
• London, UK

In other news:

• The winners of the 2016 Special Tony Awards, given to industry professionals not eligible in any of the existing categories, have been announced. Congratulations to Sally Ann Parsons, Joan Lader, and Seth Gelblum.

• Alice Birch’s play Revolt. She Said. Revolt Again. opens in New York. The New York Times sat down with her to chat about her work, her inspiration and the messages she hopes to send.

• Omar El-Khairy and Nadia Latif, respectively the writer and director of Homegrown, a play about the radicalization of young Muslims that was pulled from the National Youth Theatre in England, examine the good-Muslim/bad-Muslim debate.

• American Theatre looks at how theatres are progressively adapting their performances to accommodate audiences with disabilities.

• Idris Elba expresses an interest in doing a play. Really the rest of the news listed here is superfluous. This is basically all that matters.

• American Theatre’s takes a look back at the month of April over the course of English theatre history.

And, to return to Shakespeare:

• The Guardian looks at how a quintessentially English man writing English stories became a “US phenomenon.”

• They also interviewed text advisor Giles Block on his work analyzing the delivery of the Bard’s work. I had no idea this was a job. Turns out it’s pretty neat.

• And finally, in London… tu-be or not tu-be? (Come on, that’s just genius.)

 

WRITTEN BY

Hannah Antaki

Hannah works in casting, the only profession that allows her to truthfully use work as an excuse to stay home and watch TV. A dropout of both preschool and law school, she loves Montreal bagels, Harry Potter, and conversations about diversity. Her diet starts tomorrow.

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