Skip to 0 minutes and 27 seconds JACQUI O’HANLON: Born and educated in Stratford-upon-Avon, William Shakespeare went on to write some of the most famous plays in the English language. For over 400 years, those plays have been performed all over the world, interpreted in many different ways by many different companies. And we think that around 50% of school students in the world study the man and his plays every year. Welcome to the Royal Shakespeare Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon. I’m Jacqui O’Hanlon, Director of Education. This evening, on this stage, there will be a performance of one of Shakespeare’s best loved plays, usually known as Much Ado About Nothing and in our season, called Love’s Labors Won.
Skip to 1 minute and 38 seconds You can join us over four weeks, starting on the 2nd of March, 2015, for a MOOC, a massive open online course, exploring Much Ado About Nothing in performance. Ideal for 16 to 19 year olds in full time education, the course will explore the many ways in which this play has been performed and interpreted from its original staging right through to the modern day. Ultimately, we’ll invite you to analyze the Royal Shakespeare company’s current production, informed by your learning over the four weeks. You will learn alongside leading experts, including Dr. Nick Walton from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He will look at the original staging conditions of the play. Dr.
Skip to 2 minutes and 25 seconds Abigail Rokison from the Shakespeare Institute will consider how different 20th and 21st century productions have interpreted Shakespeare’s texts for their audience. We will also hear from the director of our current production, Christopher Luscombe who, along with members of the acting company, will share and explore the creative process and choices that they made in staging base production for 2014. Michelle Terry and Edward Bennett, who play Beatrice and Benedick in our production, will give you insights into how an actor uses the text in order to create a performance with depth, coherence, and energy.
Skip to 3 minutes and 5 seconds Whether you’re a student studying this play, a teacher looking for new insights into it, or anyone who is interested in the process of moving a text from the page to the stage, we hope that you will join our online conversation. By the end of this course, you’ll have a deeper understanding of Much Ado About Nothing as a play in performance. We look forward to you joining us on the same journey that our creative teams take in bringing any of Shakespeare’s plays to life for the stage.
