Shakespeare’s Globe has announced the programme for Shakespeare And Race, a new festival of events commencing 11 August.
Curated to draw attention to and provide a platform for scholars, practitioners and educators of colour in the teaching, study and performance of Shakespeare, the festival will highlight the importance of race to the consideration of Shakespeare not only in his time, but more urgently, in our own.
The festival includes a play – American Moor by Keith Hamilton Cobb – and a workshop entitled Staging Race And Diversity in the Shakespearean Theatre. The Sam Wanamaker Fellowship Lecture is to be given by Professor Kim F. Hall, and there will also be a pre-show talk for Emilia with Morgan-Lloyd Malcolm; a panel discussion of actors who have played Othello; and an international symposium featuring Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and UCLA, who coined the term ‘intersectionality’.
The festival starts and finishes with theatre productions: Voices In The Dark opens the festival, with personal stories written by young British Muslims performed alongside devised scenes to highlight parallels between Shakespeare’s stories and these modern ones. Hip-Hop Shakespeare Unplugged concludes the programme on 18 August, featuring the renowned Hip-hop Shakespeare house band and a range of undiscovered young talent performing a medley of songs inspired by scenes and themes from Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets.
Margaret Casely-Hayford, Chair of Shakespeare’s Globe, said: “Shakespeare’s ability to give an eloquent voice to people of different backgrounds and in widely differing emotional states speaks to and for all of us and is what makes him enduringly powerful. He is part of all of our heritage.”
For full programme listings, please visit the Shakespeare’s Globe website.
Looking to learn more about Shakespeare’s Globe? The Globe Exhibition and Tour is the ideal place in which to introduce your family to Shakespeare and the theatre for which he wrote.