The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 21.0007  Thursday, 7 January 2010

From:	    John F. Andrews <
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Date:	    Wednesday, January 06, 2010 5:56 PM
Subject:    Shakespeare Guild

Welcoming the New Year

After enticing engagements with New Yorker favorite ADAM GOPNIK 
(September), bestselling linguist DEBORAH TANNEN (October in Manhattan, 
November in Washington), award-winning performer RICHARD EASTON 
(November), and Harvard superstar MARJORIE GARBER (December), the 
Shakespeare Guild is pleased to announce an appealing lineup of new 
programs for the months ahead.

In mid-January we'll co-host three gatherings that place the spotlight 
on JUDITH MARTIN, an inimitable writer who has been extolled by Newsday 
as "a philosopher cleverly and charmingly disguised as an etiquette 
columnist." On February 5 we'll enjoy an engaging discussion with BARRY 
EDELSTEIN, an esteemed director who'll introduce two lively books on 
Shakespeare. And on February 8 we'll co-sponsor a stage reading of 
Mortal Terror, a hauntingly resonant play by ROBERT BRUSTEIN, who 
founded two of our nation's most prestigious theatre companies and has 
now completed the second installment in a stirring dramatic trilogy 
about Elizabethan and Jacobean England.

Looking ahead, on March 16 we'll bring our first event to the Land of 
Enchantment, when historian LYNNE OLSON and her husband STANLEY CLOUD 
take part in a colloquy that focuses on Citizens of London, Lynne's 
compelling narrative about "The Americans Who Stood by Britain in its 
Darkest, Finest Hour." This event will be co-sponsored by the Santa Fe 
Council on International Relations, and it will take place between 4:00 
and 6:00 p.m. in the Great Hall of St. John's College, with SJC 
President Michael P. Peters as one of the participants. We'll then 
return to Manhattan's National Arts Club on March 22 for an 8:00 p.m. 
look at Shakespeare Behind Bars with CURT TOFTELAND and JEAN TROUNSTINE, 
two visionaries who have done inspiring work with convicts in two of 
America's prisons.

More attractions will be announced in the near future, among them a May 
18 evening with Columbia's prolific JAMES SHAPIRO, a scholar who has 
given us Shakespeare and the Jews and 1599: A Year in the Life of 
William Shakespeare. Professor Shapiro will discuss Contested 
Shakespeare, his reflections about those who contend that someone other 
than Shakespeare wrote the works that have conventionally been 
attributed to him since the 1590s.

Please see the detailed descriptions that follow for our January and 
February offerings, and see www.shakesguild.org for further information. 
  There you'll find more event highlights and a convenient link to an 
online order form that will facilitate secure credit-card transactions.

____________________________________
Barry Edelstein

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 5, AT 8:00 P.M.
NATIONAL ARTS CLUB
15 GRAMERCY PARK SOUTH, MANHATTAN
MEMBERS $25, NON-MEMBERS $30

A talented director who has produced nearly half of Shakespeare's plays 
and worked with such award-winning performers as Bill Irwin, Kevin 
Kline, Steve Martin, Gwyneth Paltrow, Roger Rees, and Uma Thurman, BARRY 
EDELSTEIN is a Rhodes Scholar who has taught at Juilliard, NYU, and USC, 
and who now oversees the Shakespeare Lab conservatory at the Public 
Theater. During a wide-ranging conversation with the Guild's John 
Andrews, Mr.  Edelstein will talk about two of his recent publications, 
Thinking Shakespeare (commended by New York magazine as a "must-read for 
actors") and Bardisms: Shakespeare for all Occasions.  He'll touch on 
the productions he has directed in such venues as the New York 
Shakespeare Festival, the Williamstown Theatre Festival, and Classic 
Stage Company, an ensemble he headed for several years. And he'll 
preview the two shows that will be presented, with a single illustrious 
cast in repertory, this summer in Central Park, The Merchant of Venice 
and The Winter's Tale.

____________________________________
Robert Brustein

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 8, AT 7:30 P.M.
THE PLAYERS
16 GRAMERCY PARK SOUTH, MANHATTAN
MEMBERS $20, NON-MEMBERS $25

A renowned producer, director, and critic, ROBERT BRUSTEIN founded both 
the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven and the American Repertory 
Theatre at Harvard. He's also distinguished himself as a teacher, not 
only at the universities that house those institutions, but at Columbia 
and at the University of Southern California. He has been the New 
Republic drama reviewer since 1959, and he now comments on politics for 
the Huffington Post.  A prolific author, Mr. Brustein has fifteen books 
to his credit, among them The Theatre of Revolt: An Approach to Modern 
Drama (1964), Revolution as Theatre: Notes on the New Radical Style 
(1971), Who Needs Theatre: Dramatic Opinions (1987), Letters to a Young 
Actor: A Universal Guide to Performance (2005), and The Tainted Muse: 
Prejudice and Presumption in Shakespeare and his Time (2009). But it 
will be Mr. Brustein's work as a dramatist that draws us together for 
this special occasion at a club that was established by the incomparable 
Edwin Booth.

Having already scripted Demons, Nobody Dies on Friday, The Face-Lift, 
Spring Forward, and Fall Back, Mr. Brustein launched a trilogy on 
Elizabethan and Jacobean society with The English Channel in 2007. He's 
now come forward with Mortal Terror, an exploration of the eerie 
parallels between our own 9/ll and a 1605 Gunpowder Plot to blow up the 
towers of Parliament.  Directing this presentation will be Daniela 
Varon, who is widely admired for her productions at Shakespeare & 
Company and other venues, and who has presided over several seasons of 
Conversations with Shakespeare at Symphony Space. She is now lining up 
the eight actors who'll enact key roles in Mortal Terror, and she has 
already received commitments from such notables as Mark Linn Baker, a 
performer best known for his portrayal of Larry Appleton in the 1980s 
sitcom Perfect Strangers.

This 90-minute performance will introduce New Yorkers to a play that has 
already been enthusiastically received by audiences in Cambridge, 
Washington, and elsewhere. Following a brief interval, it will be 
followed by a 15-conversation with Mr. Brustein, Ms. Varon, and their 
thespian co-conspirators.

For their generous support of this event, the Guild is exceedingly 
grateful to Robert Davoli, Eileen McDonagh, and William Zabel.

_______________________________________________________
Registration and Membership

To register for one or more of these events, or to obtain details about 
them and other offerings by the Shakespeare Guild and the 
English-Speaking Union, all you need to do is reply to this message or 
make use of the contact details below. If you wish, we'll be pleased to 
supply you with newsletters or other material from both organizations.

John F. Andrews, OBE
President, The Shakespeare Guild
Advisory Council, ESU Washington
New Mexico Humanities Council
5B Calle San Martin
Santa Fe, NM 87506-7536
Phone (505) 988-9560  Fax (505) 983-0806
www.shakesguild.org or www.esuwdc.org

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