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We get a backstage tour of York Theatre Royal, site of the European premiere of The Complete World of Sports (abridged), and the 268-year-old center of theatrical life in this ancient city. Featuring guidance from YTR Artistic Director Damian Cruden, advice on the proper way to play a pantomime dame, live antics from our time at BBC Radio York, and warnings about the theatre’s Grey Lady. (Length 20:03)
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For his final production as thirty-year artistic director of Chicago's Tony-winning Court Theatre, Charles Newell transforms Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead into an unexpectedly joyful celebration of legacy and theater. Newell reveals his lengthy relationship with not only Stoppard's plays but with the man himself, and shares how he cast two halves of a whole; how he chose to respond instinctively to what was happening in rehearsal rather than adhere to an intricate plan; and how he embraced the counterintuitive and seemingly-oxymoronic phrase “joyful requiem.” (PICTURED: Erik Hellman and Nate Burger as Guildenstern and Rosencrantz in the Court Theatre production of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, directed by Charles Newell. Photo by Michael Brosilow.) (Length 20:20)
Michelle Ephraim – a Professor of English and (with Caroline Bicks), the cohost of the Everyday Shakespeare podcast and the co-author of Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dramas – joins us this week to talk about her frank and funny new book, Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare. Michelle reveals she discovered Shakespeare surprisingly late; how “fun” is a a perfectly fine description of her sometimes fraught memoir; the shared curse of meeting hero Stephens; how Shakespeare became a source of both pain and solace in the wake of a parent’s death; how her relatively cushy job became surprisingly hazardous; and, finally, how Shakespeare – a dead European white man – became a very relatable force for inclusion. (Length 19:31)
Richard Schoch discusses Shakespeare’s House: A Window Onto His Life and Legacy, his wonderful new history of not only the building in Stratford-upon-Avon that William Shakespeare was born in, but how that building survived and became ground zero in the Shakespeare tourism industry. Schoch reveals how he discovered the dual focus of his book; how it took almost 200 years for people to realize the treasure that still stood in their midst; the shenanigans played by people who first depicted Shakespeare’s birthplace; the important distinctions between restoring a house and remaking it; the trick of hitting that sweet spot between writing an academic history and a popular one; and how the most important person in Shakespeare’s birthplace is not Shakespeare but the visitor. (Length 18:52)
1 Comment
Bjorn Borg · June 13, 2012 at 5:04 pm
Hi. Loved the DR in York this afternoon, your energy is amazing and the material is, for want of a more appropriate word, funny, but I’m sure you already know that.
Feel I need to say the Brian Clough comparison to Yogi Berra is, while smarter than the average joke, somewhat lost on a British audience. Our sportsmen are people to whom we occasionally listen – during post-match interviews – expecting platitudes, cliches and, above all, a reassurance that we are more educated and articulate despite being considerably less well-paid. To theatre-goers, any semblance of sanity, philosophy or normality in these discourses is distrusted and shunned, and Mr. Clough, a notorious drinker and fan-puncher, is, despite his misdemeanours menioned since the last full-stop [ U.S. ‘period’] actually held nationally in high-regard as the greatest manager the England team NEVER had (European Cups, promotion of Derby County, Notts. Forrest etc.) and not one for talking bollocks.
In short ALL our sportsmen and commentators talk equivalent shite when viewed at the “theatre-level” (read “Colemanballs” in “Private Eye” or seek out the books online) so, to make the joke work, maybe list Yogi as the Bush family’s grammar tutor. When it comes to putting your foot in your mouth there is no one like George W on this side of the pond, sportsman or otherwise.
Once again, I loved the show and I reckon everyone who turns up will have a great time. Good luck with the tour.
🙂