#blanche mcintyre

[heyho-simonrussellbeale]

!!! (finally)

Simon Russell Beale will star as A E Housman in Tom Stoppard’s The Invention of Love directed by Blanche McIntyre at Hampstead Theatre from 4 December to 25 January.

Booking is open.

[pers-books]

Hey, Bard Nerds, this looks AMAZING!

 17 September – 6.30 PM

 Globe Theatre

Prices: £120.00 - £10.00

In honour of the 400th anniversary of the First Folio, we gather in the Globe Theatre for an ultra-live experiment, to recreate Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night for one night only.

The First Folio is a collection of (almost) all the Shakespeare plays that we know of, and one of the most influential books ever published. Without it, many of Shakespeare’s most loved plays, including Twelfth Night, would have been lost forever.

In Shakespeare’s times, often actors had no access to the whole play script. Instead, they were given their lines on a scroll or a roll of paper (literally their role), with a few words that would be their cue: hence cue-script. They also didn’t have the weeks of rehearsal that we are used to now. For the most part, each actor would go away, learn their lines, learn their cues, and then turn up at the theatre ready to go.

Just the play, the players, and the most important character of all: you, the audience.

Now, 400 years later, we will attempt to do the same. Directed by Blanche McIntyre (Measure for Measure, 2022), a host of familiar faces are primed to learn their lines, familiarise their cues and step courageously into the unknown on the stage of our glorious wooden ‘O’. All you need to do is join us for a night that promises to be spontaneous, revelatory, and celebratory!

A Folio 400 special performance.

‘When my cue comes call me’

– A Midsummer Night’s Dream; Act IV, scene 1

[peterviney1]

The Merry Wives of Windsor - RSC 2024 review

The second review from the RSC this week. It’s Blanche McIntyre’s directed THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR, (follow link). This is the normal modern day setting, but it’s even set right now in the football Euros (peripherally). John Hodgkinson is a towering Falstaff in more ways than one. It’s modern suburban England. For me it’s a favourite comedy, enjoying another wonderful version.

[shakespearenews]

Nonetheless, McIntyre explains, “intractable problems, both of situation and personality, make for juicy drama. You go to watch people going through things that you can’t imagine going through.” In All’s Well (“famously the play where you don’t like anyone”), the biggest stumbling block is a moral one – Helena, the heroine, beds her crush Bertram by convincing him he’s having sex with someone else. “The idea of a bed trick is ethically questionable,” McIntyre protests. “It’s essentially a sexual assault: Bertram can’t consent because he doesn’t know who he’s sleeping with. But the play has no problem with the bed trick. The play thinks it’s fine; it even cheers her on.”

She refuses to skate over this “appalling” moment. “When the world of the play contains this poisonous central act, I cannot excuse it to the audience. It’s a play about incredibly flawed people who do awful things to each other, and this is the worst of many.” 

[willstafford]

Well?

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Wednesday 7th August, 2022 Everyone knows the title of Shakespeare’s late comedy (characters even say it as part of their dialogue) but fewer people are familiar with the story it tells.  The play isn’t performed as often as Much Ado, Twelfth Night and As You Like It, so every new production has a head start in delivering something…

[theworldofotps]

Well damn okay I see how it is, ending me with this beautiful piece😍

Morning Kindle

In your groggy state of waking up, you heard the door to your chamber open and close quietly. It could only be your king returning. It must’ve been a little late in the morning if he was coming to see if you had woken by now. Meaning it was time to rise for the day.

Keep reading

[globefan]

WINTER SEASON ANNOUNCEMENT!

Measure for Measure, directed by Blanche McIntyre

Hamlet featuring the globe ensemble, directed by Sean Holmes

The Merchant of Venice, directed by Abigail Graham

The Fir Tree, by Hans Christian Andersen, new version by Hannah Khalil

October sees Telling Tales back for autumn

And there's going to be £5 standing tickets!

Advanced priority booking: 3rd sept

Priority booking: 9th sept

Public booking: 16th sept

More details here

[all-allam]

Roger Allam, Stephen Fry, Blanche McIntyre and John Jencks at The Hippopotamus Q&A hosted by Mark Kermode, live from the Hay Festival (28th May 2017 - courtesy of @HippoTheMovie on twitter). 

[bacchic-mischief]

Hymn by Lolita Chakrabarti Dir. Blanche McIntyre

2.18.2021

“What do I tell her?”  “The truth- that’s all that’s left.” 

[peterviney1]

Bartholomew Fair – review Review of BARTHOLOMEW FAIR by Ben Jonson (follow link). Ben Jonson's 1614 play was an innovative city comedy with a dizzying number of characters and events at London's annual fair / orgy which ran for hundreds of years. Modern dress production in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. Read the linked review.

[goodticklebrain]

Q&A August: Christy Burgess of the Robinson Shakespeare Company

It’s the final week of Q&A August! Let me take  you back to 2016, to my first ever Shakespeare Theatre Association conference, hosted by Notre Dame University in South Bend, Indiana. It was the last day, and the morning’s warm-up session was being conducted by Christy Burgess and the Robinson Shakespeare Company, a community Shakespeare program for school-aged kids.  After several rounds of fun theatre games, Christy asked her students if any of them wanted to perform some Shakespeare for this objectively intimidating roomful of seasoned, experienced, and elite Shakespeare practitioners and educators.

Every single hand flew up into the air.

After some negotiation, a tiny girl in a pink dress, probably not more than nine or ten years old, stood up. Awww, this is so cute. Is she going to do Puck’s “If we shadows have offended” epil— NOPE. She narrowed her eyes and spat out Cloten’s “meanest garment” speech from Cymbeline with all the vitriol of a rejected privileged white man. My jaw literally dropped. HOW was this possible?

The answer was Christy Burgess. I’d actually met Christy the year before, when I drove down to  South Bend to see a couple shows at the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, and she immediately overwhelmed me (in a good way) with her energy, enthusiasm, and passion not just for teaching kids Shakespeare, but for giving them ownership of Shakespeare. Every single one of her students believes that Shakespeare is theirs. I’ll never forget Christy telling me what her students’ reaction was upon meeting a professional Shakespeare company: “Oh, you do Shakespeare too? That’s cute... WE  do Shakespeare.”

On a more personal level, Christy helped shepherd me through the impostor syndrome I suffered from while attending my first conference, giving me the confidence to find my place in the Shakespeare community without constantly apologizing for being “just someone who draws stupid stick figures”. Christy builds people up, and the world is better for it.

1. Who are you? Why Shakespeare?

My name is Christy Burgess and I am the director of the Robinson Shakespeare Company.  I am a teacher, director, and have most recently been christened “Shakespeare Maven” by my friend Julia.

Why Shakespeare? There are so many reasons for “why Shakespeare”.  The Robinson Shakespeare Company starts in 3rd grade and the first day of our 3rd-6th grade class is one of my favorite all year.  Many of our young actors have waited since kindergarten watching their older siblings or young adults they admire go through the program.  The anticipation and excitement on that first day of class is palpable, because they finally get to do Shakespeare.  It’s also become something that is a little subversive.  There are times when our kids are told “you don’t really like Shakespeare” or “shouldn’t you be playing sports?”, which has the effect of “don’t tell me what I’m supposed to like!”

In a meeting, someone asked one of my students “Why Shakespeare?”  She told a story I hadn’t heard before.  It was right after her father passed, before she went back to school.  She was walking around the track at her high school and passed an elderly white couple.  The woman said to her “shouldn’t you be in school?” to which her husband responded “Mary, don’t you know that’s how people get shot?”

This young woman said “when people walk by me, they might think I’m a hood or a thug, but Shakespeare is mine, something no one can take away from me.”  

When we study plays from Eugene O’Neil or Arthur Miller, it’s the world through their eyes, but when we play Shakespeare, it’s the world through OUR eyes.

2. What moment(s) in Shakespeare always make you laugh?

Scene 3.4 in Twelfth Night always cracks me up!  There’s something about the most non-threatening duel letter from Sir Andrew to Cesario/Olivia and the forced fight that is always funny.

Mya interjects: “Is’t so saucy?” is one of my favorite lines in Shakespeare. It’s such a stupid joke. I don’t care. I love it.

3. What's a favorite Shakespearean performance anecdote?

Every now and then there’s Shakespeare magic.

When I was teaching and directing in Alaska with the Fairbanks Shakespeare Theatre, I had made a comment to my young actors about performing in the rain.  I’m pretty sure they prayed for rain, because our last performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor, it POURED.  The audience ran for cover, but nothing could erase the looks of glee on the actor’s faces.  Falstaff’s line, “let the sky rain potatoes”, pretty much said it all!

In 2017, the Robinson Shakespeare Company (RSC*) was invited, and traveled, to England to perform in Stratford-upon-Avon the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust’s Shakespeare Garden.  The New Place recently opened and we discovered that we were the first group to perform there….if the weather held out.  There were numerous sunshine dances (involving jazz hands), prayers, and wishes.  The day of the performance, there was a storm coming right for us.  It was the closest thing to magic I’ve seen.  It was as if the storm was around us.  In videos, you can see the wind whipping the costume and the slightest drizzle of rain, but we made it!

*I know, I know, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Reduced Shakespeare Company, etc. I like to think of us as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s distant (many times removed), scrappy cousins that will be revealed if we do a deep dive on our genealogy chart.

This memory might be tinged with jet lag, because during the same trip I sat in-between two 12 year olds, who only fell asleep 30 minutes before landing.  When we arrived in Stratford, we were met by the incredible Cait Fannin-Peel (my Shakespeare wife and hero).  Our bed and breakfasts weren’t ready yet, so she took us on a tour of Shakespeare’s Birthplace.  They have an amazing little stage in-between the house and the giftshop where actors were performing bits of Shakespeare.  Cait asked if we would like to perform something.  Jet lagged, sleep deprived, and thrilled, it took about 30 seconds to plan out the opening to Cymbeline and start performing it.  Tourists surrounded us with their cameras and applauded when the scene was done.  It felt amazing as a director of young people to see them confident on stage in a setting that was incredibly different from what they were used to.  We have video evidence!

4. What's one of the more unusual Shakespearean interpretations you've either seen or would like to see?

Bart Sher’s Cymbeline at Intiman changed me.  The set was simple; a red raked stage, but by being so, it didn’t need massive set changes, we were with the story the entire time.  The production was funny, moving, and stunning.

I’m frustrated by Shakespeare that tries to distract you from thinking it is Shakespeare.  I’ve been in, or seen productions, where it’s like “look at these live animals” or “explosions” or “a fake ice rink that isn’t integral to the plot and is really slick in the rain, but look, people are ice skating for 30 seconds” that are unnecessary.  I believe you should be able to wear black clothes on a blank stage and get the story across; everything else is just icing.  If not, it’s not good Shakespeare.

Mya interjects: I am broadly in agreement with Christy here, except that I desperately want MORE live animals on stage. Dogs. Goats. Rabbits. Gerbils. I don’t care if they’re not textually supported.

5. What's one of your favorite Shakespearean "hidden gems"?

I don’t know if it’s a hidden gem, but I love Henry IV, Part 1 and 2.  I think it’s such a loss when they’re combined, because they are both stellar plays for different reasons.  Yes, Henry IV, Part 1 has all the action, but Henry IV, Part 2 has phenomenal speeches and you get to see just how devious Falstaff is.  Food for powder, anyone?

6. What passages from Shakespeare have stayed with you?

This quote from Romeo and Juliet is how I feel about teaching.  During the school week, I am in 24 classes in the South Bend community, mostly in Title 1 schools.  Last year, Tuesdays were long days.  I would teach six classes at a middle school, plus an after-school program, then direct the RSC.  That was approximately 190 kids and the day lasted from 9 am-9 pm.  It wasn’t, however, so bad, because I work with really great kids.  I feel what I give to them, they give back and the days don’t feel long.

“the more I give to thee, The more I have, for both are infinite.”

Juliet, Romeo and Juliet, 2.2

Also “bless you fair shrew” which I say to my dog all the time when she sneezes.  

Mya interjects: BLESS YOU FAIR SHREW THAT’S THE BEST I LOVE IT

7. What Shakespeare plays have changed for you?

The first time I saw Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, I was twelve and locked myself in the bathroom and cried.  Seriously though, who didn’t?  Do you have a heart of stone???

Mya interjects: Yes. :P

During our 2017 trip, we took our RSC to see the REAL RSC’s Titus Andronicus.  Blanche McIntyre is a badass director.  It’s easy to dismiss, Titus, but she found depth, and urgency.  The show made our company better.  

My actors still refer to the performance when we talk about high stakes and urgency.

8. What Shakespearean character or characters do you identify the most with?

I love Viola.  She goes on such a journey and her “make me a willow cabin at your gate” speech moves me every time.  We don’t get to pick who we love.  I’m really lucky that I have a sweetheart who loves me, Shakespeare nerdiness and all.

If I could be a character?  Henry V.

9. Where can we find out more about you? Are there any projects/events you would like us to check out?

You can find more about us on our Facebook page, Instagram, and our website.

Notre Dame Magazine put together a gorgeous website that chronicled the six months they had a reporter with us as well as our adventures to England!

(Back to Mya) Thanks so much to Christy for answering my questions, but, even more importantly, for raising the next generation of Shakespeareans. I, for one, welcome our new Shakespearean overlords.

COMING THURSDAY: It’s two-for-one day with the bard bros behind one of my favorite Shakespeare podcasts!

[shakespearesglobeblog]

Rehearsing for Bartholomew Fair.

Ahead of the riotous play by Ben Jonson opening in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse next week, assistant director Diane Page reflects on the road that led her here and what the 400 year old play means today.

Before becoming part of the Bartholomew Fair company at the Globe, it’s fair to say that my experience and knowledge of Ben Jonson and his work was substantially less than my experience of working with Shakespeare’s texts. When I was studying for my degree, eager to absorb as much knowledge as possible (the dreams of a first year Theatre and Drama Studies student!), I had read about Jonson in a chapter on Jacobean theatre in a book I had picked up in my university library. It mentioned a play called Bartholomew Fair. I found the play, skimmed through it and left it at that.

A few years later I was invited to the Globe with the possibility of assisting on a Jonson play called Bartholomew Fair, directed by Blanche McIntyre. I quickly re-read the play and as soon as I had finished reading I couldn’t believe what I had missed the first time around. It was striking how much this play seemed to mirror much of the London I knew and had grown up in. I laughed because I recognised and knew many of these characters… and this was from a play written over 400 years ago! The lines that the characters had in the play didn’t seem a million miles from how people speak today. Being London born and bred, I was immediately excited by what Jonson’s play could mean to audiences now.

Ben Jonson was born 1572 in Westminster. In his time he was a student at Westminster School, a soldier, a criminal - in 1598 he was imprisoned for a time for killing an actor, Gabriel Spencer. He was a Roman Catholic convert, a poet and a playwright. In 1614 Jonson wrote Bartholomew Fair and it was first performed in the Hope Theatre. Jonson appears to have captured a lot of the essence London, and there’s no doubt he drew inspiration from his own experience of London and the people he knew.

In the play, Jonson throws these characters into a fair where suddenly we, as the audience, get to observe how people of different classes and social statuses move amongst each other and interact. Most interestingly, we get to see how those class and social statuses are largely what these characters are judged on and we get to see how they affect how others engage with them – a lot like now.

When I think of growing up in Bermondsey and the changing landscape of some of the areas in South East London and other areas of London, there are some moments in Jonson’s play that aren’t so different from what I have seen. People from different walks of life still live and experience things side by side. Power and authority and who it belongs to is still as much of a talking point now as it is in Jonson’s play, and we can’t ignore the fact that money always plays a huge part.

Through all of this, comedy does shine through in Bartholomew Fair, but there are moments of darkness in Jonson’s play. And just like Jonson’s London, as much as we all might love London, we can probably agree that it isn’t always fun and games.  

One of the first things Blanche and I spoke about when we first met were the amount of different accents and languages in London, and what an amazing thing that was. In rehearsals the actors have been making choices that are representative of London today, one of these has been in regards to accent.  

Similarly, it has been very enriching for us all to hear the company’s stories about similar events to Bartholomew Fair they’ve experienced in modern London, or what they’ve experience by just living in London and how much we collectively share just by being here. It’s probably even richer as not everyone is originally from London.

As much as now, Jonson’s London was one that wasn’t without its problems. Thinking of the divisions in society in Jonson’s time, it isn’t hard to think of the divisions we face as a society now - and so it makes sense that this production of Bartholomew Fair is set in a contemporary way. The characters that Jonson came across and wrote about are the people we walk past every day and who we interact (or don’t interact) with. In a way nothing has changed. No one is out of place in this city until someone tells them that they are. Although this is a play about London, it’s also a play about people living out and being judged by their social identities.

So, here it is! A snapshot of London, then and now, in all its glory and grittiness.  

Bartholomew Fair opens in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse on 23 August 2019.

Photography by Marc Brenner

[willstafford]

Hands Off!

TITUS ANDRONICUS

Royal Shakespeare Theatre, Thursday 20th July, 2017

  Shakespeare’s bloodiest play (and a big box office hit during his life) is given a contemporary setting in Blanche McIntyre’s darkly enjoyable production.  Hoodie-wearing plebs pose for selfies in front of pageantry.  A Deliveroo driver turns out to be a hapless messenger, murdered for his bad luck.  It’s all recognisable if…

[bwthornton]

#Stratford #News #RSC #TitusAndronicus Tonight 19.15 Wed 5 Jul Royal Shakespeare Theatre Stratford #Shakespeare

http://stratford-upon-avon-theatre.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/rsc-titus-andronicus-stratford-uponavon.html

http://www.bwthornton.co.uk/a-midsummer-mouse.php

[hattie-morahan]

Hattie will read Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own at the Sam Wananmaker Playhouse Thurs. 28th Nov.

This winter we continue to shine a candlelight on women’s stories, and this week in the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse sees us turn to one of the most important modernist authors – Virginia Woolf – and her seminal works, A Room of One’s Own and Three Guineas.

Bringing to life these works will be a trio of sensational women. Returning to the Globe Family, Blanche McIntyre directs Joan Iyiola and Hattie Morahan – and together they'll explore Woman’s right to intellectual freedom and financial independence: po.st/Woolf [x]

[doortotomorrow]

I’ve been debating on whether or not I should make this post about one of the biggest problems I have with The 100 fandom for an exorbitant amount of time because of the subject matter involved, but being me and not being capable of shutting my trap, I’ve decided to get this off my chest. Here goes...

If you’re a woman character in the series and your name isn’t Clarke Griffin, Octavia Blake, Raven Reyes, or Lexa kom Triku, you won’t get much positive regard from the fandom. If you are none of these women, you will be shunned, vilified, forgotten about, and/or thought of as not important. 

We never have to do any kind of appreciation weeks on Tumblr for Clarke, Raven, Lexa, or Octavia, because they get talked about all the time. They’re put on pedestals, labeled flawless goddesses, are given a carte blanche by their admirers, and thanks to this zealous worship, we can never discuss their failings or shortcomings without receiving endless harassment for it. 

The consistent disregard for the other women in this series has led to some completely disrespectful behavior by the fandom. I’ll use Harper and Emori for an example of this. 

Harper McIntyre raised her child, Jordan Green, into adulthood. Seeing things like, “OMG, CLARKE AND BELLAMY ARE GONNA ADOPT JORDAN!”, completely disregards all of Harper’s hard work as a mother in raising her son right. Harper didn’t sacrifice her chance to live on this new planet with her family just so you can use her child as way to validate your ship. Got it? Good. It’s disrespectful as fuck to her memory.

Emori kom Spacekru was a straight up mvp in the fifth season. She landed the rocket with surgical precision, bringing it down flawlessly into the butter zone, figured out a way to disable the shock collars, used one to create a makeshift bomb, brought hell on the people who’re about to kill Bellamy’s group in the wastelands, drove the Rover straight into a warzone...and yet there’s people still saying she’s second best to Raven in the intelligence department. 

And that’s not even touching on the racist tropes associated with characters like Octavia and Lexa. Almost everyone that Octavia has brutalized, and/or killed on screen have been characters who aren’t white. Lincoln, Bellamy, Ilian, Gaia, and Indra come to mind. And then there’s Lexa, a white girl appropriating culture that doesn’t belong to her. But if you even try to bring this up, you automatically get bombarded with comments, stating, “HOW CAN YOU HATE, LEXA, YOU HOMOPHOBIC BITCH!!!! I HOPE YOU DIE IN FUCKING FIRE!, and, “OCTAVIA’S A FUCKING BADASS, SHUT THE FUCK UP!”

So yeah, that’s what’s been on my mind lately.