Category: Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ
Talent
Date: 03.02.2005
Printable version
The deadline is looming for schools across the country to sign up for
a historic one-off UK-wide festival to celebrate the great works of
Shakespeare.
The Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ and Shakespeare Schools Festival (SSF) are to produce 1
Night of Shakespeare, an event involving 10,000 young performers
aged 11 to 16 from 400 schools performing Shakespeare in 100 theatres
on the night of Sunday 3 July 2005.
Open to every secondary school in the UK, 1 Night of Shakespeare will
enable teachers and pupils to produce and direct their own interpretations
of one of 13 abridged versions of Shakespeare plays.
The plays are: Romeo
and Juliet, Twelfth Night, Othello, As You Like It, Hamlet, The Tempest,
The Taming of the Shrew, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, A Midsummer Night's
Dream, The Winter's Tale, Richard III and The Merchant of Venice.
The collaboration involves Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Drama and Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Talent working with the
Shakespeare Schools Festival.
Teacher/directors will be offered training on how to direct Shakespeare
on a bare stage.
Pupil/cast members will be part of workshops with the National Youth
Theatre, Scottish Youth Theatre, National Youth Theatre of Wales and
the Ulster Association of Youth Drama. A list of theatres
and cast workshop dates is available in the pdf file on the right hand
side of this page.
The deadline for secondary schools to register an interest
is Friday 25 February.
Chris Grace, Director of the Shakespeare Schools Festival, says: "I
was hugely excited when the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ invited SSF to stage a one-off, historic
event of this scale.
"From Ullapool to Bodmin, Enniskillen to Norwich, each of the
100 theatres across the country will stage four different half hour
productions from four different schools in an unprecedented UK-wide
celebration of Shakespeare."
Jane Tranter, Controller, Drama Commissioning, says: "We are thrilled
to be working with the Shakespeare Schools Festival.
"It's a fantastic opportunity and we hope to bring Shakespeare's
stories alive in the most involving and entertaining ways for young
people."
Later in the year, some of Britain's leading television writers are
to interpret four of Shakespeare's plays in modern versions for Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ
ONE.
Peter Bowker sets A Midsummer Night's Dream during a weekend in
a holiday park while Sally Wainwright's version of The Taming of the
Shrew has Kate as an opposition MP who is instructed to find herself
a husband to become more electable.
In David Nicholls' Much Ado About Nothing, Beatrice and Benedict are
co-presenters of a popular early evening regional television news show,
and Peter Moffat's Macbeth is transposed to the enclosed and heated
world of a top restaurant.
Theatre and cast workshop dates for 1 Night of Shakespeare
are in the pdf file on the right hand side of this page.
