Shakespeare Programs  

The ESU Shakespeare Competition

One of ESU Washington's most popular and edifying educational activities is its spring Shakespeare Competition for the National Capital Region. The 21st installment of this sprightly event will occur at the Lansburgh Theatre (450 7th Street NW) on Monday, March 8. Details will be announced in the near future.

The 20th annual presentation of the contest took place at the Lansburgh Theatre on Monday, March 9, 2009, between 1:30 and 8:00 p.m. For the second consecutive year our festivities were co-sponsored by the globally acclaimed Shakespeare Theatre Company, and they featured such eminent particpants as Michael Kahn, the STC's distinguished Artistic Director (who welcomed everyone and delivered keynote remarks between 1:30 and 2:30, at which time the Opening Round of the contest commenced), Casey Kaleba, a renowned authority on the history of armaments and a classical-theatre fight director (who talked about the techniques of Elizabethan combat while the contest judges were deliberating over the performances they'd just witnessed), and Gary Logan, Director of the Academy for Classical Acting, a joint endeavor of the STC and George Washington University (who joined ESU Vice President Marjorie Williams to bestow the 2009 Walter L. Wright Fellowrship for Exceptional Promise in the Dramatic Profession and announce the finalists who would return for the Concluding Round of the Competition). Following a Reception in the Lansburgh lobby, everyone repairedto the Theatre at 7:00 for the culmination of a rewarding day of activities.

The winners were announced between 7:45 and 8:00 p.m. Those who placed in the top three spots received monetary prizes, and Miles Butler, a junior at George Mason High School in northern Virginia, who came out first, proceeded to Lincoln Center on Monday, April 27, for the National Shakespeare Competition. Placing second in this year's contest was Morgaine Gooding-Silverwood of The New School in Fairfax. Placing third was Anthony Pape-Calabrese of Bethesda-Chevy Chase High School in Montgomery County, Maryland.

We're gratified to note that one of our partners in this year's proceedings was the Department of English, ably chaired by Jeffrey Cohen, at George Washington University. And we're especially happy to observe that this gathering, as well as a workshop for teachers and students that preceded it Saturday, March 7, on the GWU campus, was underwritten by a generous Chairman's Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The Saturday workshop on March 7 occurred in Building L (2129 G Street NW) at the University, with the opening session (10:00 a.m. - 12:00 noon) a Master Class on Character Analysis and Oral Interpretation conducted by Gary Logan, with able assistance from Valerie Karasek, a gifted Fairfax County teacher, actor, and director. After a one-hour lunch break, there were two concurrent afternoon sessions (1:00 to 2:30 p.m.). One of these gatherings, in Room 101 of the Marvin Center (800 21st Street NW), was a presentation for students and other interested observers with a focus on The Culture and Contexts of Shakespeare's Plays by John Andrews (editor of two editions of Shakespeare's works, one for the Literary Guild and the second for Orion Books). The other session, a presentation for instructors and other interested observers by Jay L. Halio (a prolific author and a professor emeritus from the University of Delaware), took place in Rooms 413-14 of the Marvin Center.

Looking back, we're pleased to note that our 19th annual contest for senior high-school students took place Monday, March 10, 2008, at Sidney Harman Hall, the lustrous centerpiece of the Shakespeare Theatre Company's new Harman Center for the Arts. We're delighted to report that this event was co-hosted by, and presented in partnership with, the STC. We're exceedingly grateful to everyone at the Theatre, but we extend special thanks to Gregory Smith, who oversees its education division.

Placing first in the 2008 contest was Shelby Coley, a student of Charles Feeser at Benjamin Banneker High School in the District of Columbia. Ms. Coley proceeded to Lincoln Center in New York for the National Shakekspeare Competition, which occurred on Monday, April 28. Other winners were Katie LeDain, a student of Sandra Blakeslee at Stone Ridge School in Bethesda, who placed second in the Competition, and Noah Schechter, a student of Tyler Reedy of Pikesville High School in Baltimore, who placed third.

Another honoree was Scott Westerman, a Master of Fine Arts candidate at the Academy for Classical Acting, a joint venture of George Washington University and the Shakespeare Theatre Company, who garnered a $2,500 stipend as this year's recipient of the Walter L. Wright III Award for Exceptional Promise in the Dramatic Profession. As in years past, this laurel was bestowed by Dr. Wright's widow, Dr. Marjorie Williams, a generous patron and a long-time Vice President of the branch of the English-Speaking Union that serves the Nation's Capital. Previous honorees have included Carol Roscoe (2002), Bob McClure (2003), Kate Riley (2004), Elizabeth Webster (2005), Carie Yonekawa (2006), and Josh Thelin (2007).

Among the other highlights of the program were (a) a keynote interview with Dr. E. R. Braithwaite, the educator, author, and diplomat who chronicled his first teaching experience in To Sir, With Love, an international best-selling memoir that became a famous film, (b) a master class by Gary Logan, Director of the Academy for Classical Acting, and (c) a demonstration of Shakespearean weaponry and stage combat by actor and fight director Casey Kaleba.

Moving back another year, we're happy to recall that our 18th annual contest for high-school students occurred Monday, March 5, 2007, on the Lansburgh stage of what had only recently been renamed the Shakespeare Theatre Company. As in previous seasons, major funding for ESU Washington's 2007 Shakespeare Competition came from the Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation. Key support also came, as in prior years, from Dr. Marjorie Williams and from the National Geographic Society.

Placing first in the 2007 proceedings was Gracie Terzian, a student of Vanessa Gelinas at Oakton High School in Fairfax County, Virginia; Ms. Terzian advanced to the National Shakespeare Competition on Monday, April 23, in New York's Lincoln Center, and she was one of ten entrants who qualified for the final round of the contest. The New Globe Theatre recorded all of the finalists' performances, and through a link available at www.esuus.org, viewers can watch Gracie's presentation, and others that took place on that special day at the Mitzi Newhouse Theatre, over YouTube.

First Alternate in our local Competition for 2007 was Cassie Murray, a student of Alexandra London-Thompson at Holton-Arms School in Bethesda, Maryland. Second Alternate was Noah Schechter, a student of Tyler Reedy at Pikesville High School in Baltimore County, Maryland, whose institution was taking part in the event for the first time. Another winner during the 2007 get-together was Valerie Karasek of Rocky Run Middle School in Fairfax County, who received a $4,000 grant as ESU Washington's recipient of the Shakespeare Teacher Award for 2007. Ms. Karasek applied this sum to the costs of a summer course in 2008 at Shakespeare's Globe in London. Several previous recipients of the Teacher Award, among them Laura Burroughs, Janet Rodkey, and Tricia Veneziani, have benefited from three weeks at the Globe. Others, among them Kelly Newman O'Connor, have enjoyed stimulating summers at the University of Oxford.

In addition to its Shakespeare Competition for the National Capital Region, a contest for students in grades 10-12 until this year (when 9th-graders were invited to participate), ESU Washington co-sponsors a related Shakespeare Monologue Competition for students in grades 6-9. For more information about this endeavor, which was created through the initiative of Fran Caterini at Washington Episcopal School and is now administered primarily by the University of Maryland's Center for Renaissance Studies in collaboration with Imagination Stage in Bethesda, visit the CRBS website.

Contact Us for more information about the Shakespeare Competition.

Events with the Shakespeare Guild

Along with its spring Shakespeare Competition, the branch of the English-Speaking Union that serves America's capital offers a number of additional opportunities for its constituents to develop a stronger appreciation for the playwright who has been praised as history's most reliable guide to the mileposts of life. Most of these activities are co-hosted by the Shakespeare Guild, with which ESU Washington shared an executive leader, John F. Andrews, from April 2001 through mid-December 2007.

The Guild launched its 2009-10 SOS season at 8:00 on Monday evening, September 14, at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park in Manhattan) with New Yorker favorite Adam Gopnik, who talked with Mr. Andrews about the Bardic resonances in Angels and Ages: A Short Book About Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life. The next program took place on Monday, October 19, at the NAC with Georgetown linguist Deborah Tannen, who introduced her latest installment to a shelf that includes such bestsellers as You Just Don't Understand and I Only Say This Because I Love You. She and Mr. Andrews discussed You Were Always Mom's Favorite, a study of sisters that includes illustrations from plays like King Lear and The Taming of the Shrew. On Monday, November 16, Mr. Andrews talked with award-winning actor Richard Easton, who recalled his many associations with such legends as Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Sir John Gielgud, and Sir Tyrone Guthrie. On Monday, December 14, Mr. Andrews' guest was distinguished Harvard professor Marjorie Garber, who discussed such well-received plublications as Shakespeare After All (which won the 2005 Christian Gauss Award from the Phi Beta Kappa Society and was named one of the ten best nonfiction titles of the year by Newsweek magazine) and Shakespeare and Modern Culture.

The Guild will launch the second half of its 2009-10 season with popular "Miss Manners" columnist Judith Martin and her daughter Jacobina Martin. On Wednesday, January 13, at 10:15 a.m., they'll join Mr. Andrews to discuss their new book, Miss Manners' Guide to a Surprisingly Dignified Wedding, at a coffee sponsred by the New York Branch of the English-Speaking Union. This event, for which details will soon be available at www.esu-ny.org, will occur at 15 East 65th Street in Manhattan. A second gathering with the same enchanting authors will take place during the evening on Wednesday, January 13, at 8:00 p.m. at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South), as part of the Guild's Speaking of Shakespeare series. For that event, the price for Guild and ESU members will be $25; the price for non-members will be $30. Several days later, in conjunction with the Princeton Club of Washington and the Nation's Capital Branch of the English-Speaking Union, Mr. Andrews will introduce Judith and Jacobina Martin at a third occasion, this time a luncheon at the Woman's National Democratic Club (1526 New Hampshire Avenue NW), a short distance from Dupont Circle in the District of Columbia. For this get-together, which will commence at 12:30 p.m. (following an optional 11:30 a.m. cash-bar receptionon) Tuesday, January 19, the price for members of the ESU and the Guild will be $30.

For detail about these and other Guild events, among them a Monday, February 8, staged reading of Mortal Terror, a new play by renowned director, critic, and playwright Robert Brustein, e-mail shakesguild@msn.com or visit www.shakesguild.org.

Mr. Andrews and his Shakespeare Guild colleagues opened their 2008-9 SOS series at the NAC on Monday, September 15, 2008, with two of today's foremost authorities on the impact our favorite playwright has had on the English we speak today. Fred R. Shapiro is the widely acclaimed Editor of the Yale Book of Quotations, a definitive compiliation of research about the derivations of our most familiar expressions (more of which come from the Swan of Avon than from any other source) and a writer who recently contributed a guest "On Language" column to the New York Times Magazine on behalf of the vacationing William Safire. He was joined by another expert on what has become a global discourse, Jesse Sheidlower, who has published a lively volume about The F-Word but who is equally well known for his endeavors as Editor at Large (with principal responsibility for North American usage) of the Oxford English Dictionary, the world's most comprehensive "biography" of our rapidly evolving language.

The Guild's next event occurred in the same setting on Monday, October 6, with Jay L. Halio, one of today's leading Renaissance scholars. Dr. Halio has edited one of drama's most problematic scripts, King Lear, in three different formats, the last two versions for Cambridge University Press. He is also widely admired for thought-provoking annotated editions of The Merchant of Venice and Henry VIII for Oxford University Press.

The Guild's guest on Monday, November 17, was Hugh Hardy, a renowned Manhattan architect who has renovated or designed special additions to such iconic spaces as Bryant Park, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the New Victory Theater, the New York Botanical Garden, Radio City Music Hall, the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center, and the Santa Fe Opera. Mr. Hardy has written and lectured extensively on the special requirements of performing-arts centers, and his work has won praise from reviewers in such periodicals as Architectural Record, The New Yorker, and Time. He is now at work on a beautiful Brooklyn complex that will house Theatre for a New Audience.

Mr. Hardy was followed on Monday, December 8, by Gail Ken Paster, Director of the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill and Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly. Dr. Paster is known for such seminal books as The Idea of the City in the Age of Shakespeare and The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England, and in 2007 she presided over the 75th anniversary of an institution that houses the world's most extensive collection of history's most celebrated playwright.

The Guild's next offering occurred on Monday, January 26, 2009, at New York's National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South). Our guest for this occasion was Russell Jackson, a textual advisor for several of Kenneth Branagh's theatre, film, and radio productions, among them Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, and As You Like It. With Robert Smallwood, Mr. Jackson has edited two volumes of the indispensable Cambridge series Players of Shakespeare, in which RSC actors talk about their performances in major productions. With Jonathan Bate, he has edited and contributed to The Oxford Illustrated History of Shakespeare on Stage. He recently published Shakespeare Films in the Making, another volume with Cambridge University Press. A former Director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, Mr. Jackson now occupies the prestigious Allardyce Nicoll Chair at the University of Birmingham.

On Monday, February 23, Mr. Andrews conversed with Flora Fraser, a gifted and charming biographer who has given us Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III, and who is now ruminating on some of the themes in Virginia Woolf's speculations about Judith Shakespeare, a fictional character the novelist imagines as a frustrated sister of the poet in A Room of One's Own. Ms. Fraser introduced, and signed copies of, her latest publication, a book about Napoleon's favorite sister, Pauline Bonaparte: Venus of Empire. Flora Fraser is the daughter of Lady Antonia Fraser and the stepdaughter of Sir Harold Pinter, who died recently, not long after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature for his seminal work as a dramatist and screenwriter.

On Monday, March 16, participants in the NAC's Speaking of Shakespeare series enjoyed a special evening of melody and verse with composer and pianist Burnett Thompson, who has recorded a compact disc in which he does improvisations on Shakespeare's sonnets, and Casey Biggs, a stage and screen actor who has appeared in dozens of films, TV series, and stage productions. Mr. Thompson has performed in such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, and the National Gallery of Art, and The Washington Post has described his playing as "music for the head and heart." Mr. Biggs has directed Hamlet, Macbeth, Richard III, and other classics, and his acting career includes a celebrated Long Day's Journey into Night at Washington's Arena Stage, the first theater in the country to receive a regional Tony Award. Among his movie roles are memorable parts in Broken Arrow and The Pelican Brief. But he is probably best known for his work on television, in programs like Crossing Jordan, CSI: Miami, ER, General Hospital, Matlock, and Ryan's Hope, not to mention Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, where he plays the Cardassian Damar. Mr. Biggs and Mr. Thompson presented renderings of several of Shakespeare's most touching sonnets. They then discussed their interpretations with Mr. Andrews and the National Arts Club audience.

On Monday, April 13, the Shakespeare Guild collaborated with the English-Speaking Union of New York and the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park) in Manhattan for an NAC evening at which legendary actor Christopher Plummer talked about his acclaimed new memoir, In Spite of Myself, a beautifully illustrated Alfred A. Knopf volume that was enthusiastically welcomed on the cover page of the December 21 issue of the New York Times Book Review. Joining Mr. Plummer for what proved to be a memorable and anecdote-rich discussion was another eminent performer, Zoe Caldwell, a four-time Tony Award winner who had worked with Mr. Plummer in settings that ranged from the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in England to the Stratford Festival in Canada and the Guthrie Theater and the American Shakespeare Festival in the U.S.

On Monday, May 11, an intriguing Speaking of Shakespeare program at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park in Manhattan) put the spotlight on Barbara Gaines, Artistic Director, and Marilyn Halperin, Director of Education, of the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, an institution on Navy Pier that has become one of the cultural gems of a "Second City" that regularly graces New York with productions that earn Broadway's highest accolades. Attendees heard about such triumphs as Pacific Overtures, a show that originated on the shores of Lake Michigan and then traveled to London, where it garnered a coveted Olivier Award in 2004. They also heard about a Henry IV that thrilled British audiences in 2006 as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's unprecedented Complete Works Festival in Stratford-upon-Avon. Last year, in recognition of its many contributions to the artistic life of the Midwest, the CST won the annual Tony Award that goes to an outstanding regional theater.

On Tuesday, May 12, the Guild moved uptown to the headquarters of the New York Branch of the English-Speaking Union (15 East 65th Street) for a seasonal change of pace. If you read William Safire's popular "On Language" column for April 19 in the New York Times Magazine, you'll know that Paul Dickson had just stepped up to the plate with a third edition of his definitive Baseball Dictionary, a resource that rivals Shakespeare's Avon catalog as a repository of memorable coinages. It may be that Yogi Berra didn't really utter all the Dogberry-like aphorisms for which he's been credited, but the only way to be certain, as another Yankee diamond expert once noted, is to "look it up." This is what Mr. Dickson has long been doing for every type of slang and technical vocabulary in our lexical arsenals. During the reception that followed his remarks, he signed copies of his latest "dicksonary," which was available for purchase.

On Monday, June 8, the Guild drew its 2008-9 Speaking of Shakespeare season to a close with Tina Packer, the Founder and Artistic Director of another influential regional theater, Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. In 1978, seeking to create an ensemble that would be rooted in classical ideals of Elizabethan drama, Ms. Packer founded a troupe that performed for many years in the turn-of-the-century Berkshires estate of novelist Edith Wharton. She and her associates are now building a new amphitheater a short distance from that site, in this instance a structure that will evoke the atmosphere of the Rose, a Bankside arena in which Shakespeare's earliest plays were orginally presented, and Ms. Packer talked with great eloquence about that and other initiatives.

The final installment in the Guild's SOS series for 2007-8 was an evening on Monday, June 9, at the NAC with Jeffrey Horowitz, Artistic Director of Theatre for a New Audience. Mr. Horowitz has introduced his company's theatregoers to the work of such eminent artists as Mark Rylance (who won a 2008 Tony Award for his Best Actor performance in Boeing-Boeing), Julie Taymor (who directed Disney's phenomenally successful staging of The Lion King and whose film Titus grew out of a staging several years earlier under TFANA auspices), and Bartlett Sher (who produced a Cymbeline that transferred from New York to Stratford-upon-Avon, and who won a 2008 Tony Award as Best Director of a Musical for his Lincoln Center revival of South Pacific). Last year, as part of the Royal Shakespeare Company's unprecedented Complete Works Festival, Mr. Horowitz and his colleagues presented a widely acclaimed Merchant of Venice in Stratford with Oscar awardee F. Murray Abraham in the role of Shylock. Among other things, he discussed TFANA's plans for a new home in Brooklyn, where architect Hugh Hardy is designing a marvelously flexible entertainment complex that will have also benefited from significant conversations with another prominent figure, Frank Gehry.

Another spring 2008 highlight was a discussion in the same setting with playwright Edward Albee on Monday, May 12. In a gathering that saluted the author of such classics as The Zoo Story (1959), Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1962), Tiny Alice (1964), Seascape (1975), Three Tall Women (1990), and The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (2000), John Andrews joined NAC president O. Aldon James, director Jeffrey Stocker, and other admirers of Mr. Albee in a conversation that celebrated a dramatist whose many honors include three Pulitzer Prizes and two Tony Awards. The Cherry Lane Theatre recently produced two of Mr. Albee's early one-act plays, The American Dream (1960) and The Sandbox (1959), in a revival, starring Judith Ivey, that was directed by the playwright as a way of marking his 80th birthday. Those shows were followed by a Signature Theatre premiere of Edward Albee's Occupant, starring Mercedes Ruehl in the role of controversial artist Louise Nevelson.

But that season's biggest Guild event at the NAC was a gala presentation of the 2008 Gielgud Award, black-tie benefit that was co-sponsored by the English-Speaking Union of New York and the National Arts Club on Monday night, March 10. This ceremony paid tribute to Patrick Stewart, who won the prestigious Evening Standard Award for his performance in the title role of Macbeth at the Gielgud Theatre in London. That show also won two Olivier Awards, including a trophy for its imaginative direction by Rupert Goold, after it garnered nominations in five categories (among them best actor and best revival). Following its brief run at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it transferred to Broadway's Lyceum Theatre for an eight-week span that was recognized with six Tony Award nominations, among them citations for Leading Actor in a Play, Leading Actress in a Play, and Best Revival.

Mr. Stewart's "fearsome insight and theatrical fire" had been enthusiastically praised by Ben Brantley of the New York Times, who noted that this remarkable actor delivers "a Thane of Cawdor who has the intellectual richness and ambivalence of the Prince of Denmark." Writing for the New Yorker, critic John Lahr described Mr. Stewart as "masterly"; according to Lahr, he makes the character's journey from tentativeness to tyranny with unhistrionic aplomb." Lahr had equal praise for "the fine, fierce Kate Fleetwood" as the protagonist's Lady. And these comments echoed those of virtually every London reviewer, many of whom, according to Sarah Lyall of the New York Times, were moved "to pronounce it the 'Macbeth' of a lifetime, the best they have ever seen."

Sir Nigel Sheinwald, Britain's Ambassador to the United States, was one of the special guests who saluted Mr. Stewart in a gathering that commenced with cocktails at 6:30 p.m. and then proceeded to dinner and a sprightly program at 7:15. Other notable participants in the festivities included actor F. Murray Abraham (who won an Oscar as Salieri in the film adaptation of Peter Shaffer's Amadeus), pianist Emanuel Ax (who has performed in three concerts with Mr. Stewart and joined him in a recording of Richard Strauss's Enoch Arden), actress Kate Fleetwood (who also happens to be the wife of director Rupert Goold), actor Joel Grey (who won both a Tony and an Oscar as Master of Ceremonies in Cabaret), producer Robert Halmi Jr. (who helps his father manage RHI Entertainment, the world's most prolific maker of films and miniseries for television, among them hits that have spotlighted Mr. Stewart in such roles as Captain Ahab, King Lear, and Ebenezer Scrooge), director and filmmaker David Jones (who recently helped unveil a star for this year's honoree on Hollywood Boulevard), and film actor Daniel Stewart (the awardee's gifted son). In addition to the remarks by these luminaries, a number of messages arrived from stars who couldn't be on hand for the gala, among them congratulatory wishes from such previous Gielgud laureates as Sir Ian McKellen (1996), Sir Derek Jacobi (1997), Lynn Redgrave (2003), and Michael Kahn (2007). For more information about the 2008 Gielgud festivities, including a copy of the printed program for the gala, simply e-mail shakesguild@msn.com or esuwdc@msn.com.

The Shakespeare Guild's 2007 Gielgud Award ceremony had occurred several months earlier at the British Embassy on Monday, May 21, when Sir David and Lady Manning hosted a festive reception at which ESU Washington joined the Guild in a warm tribute to Artistic Director Michael Kahn of the Shakespeare Theatre Company. In addition to a fervent welcome from Sir David, Her Majesty's Ambassador to the United States, those who attended this gala celebration heard congratulatory remarks from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg of the United States Supreme Court, from board Chairman Landon Butler of the Shakespeare Theatre Company (who shared messages from actor Stacy Keach and from Mayor Adrian M. Fenty), from award-winning performers Helen Carey and Ted van Griethuysen, from the English-Speaking Union's international Chairman Emeritus, Lord Watson of Richmond, and from Shakespeare Guild President John Andrews (who read a letter from actor Keith Baxter that incorporated greetings from Dame Judi Dench and Dame Maggie Smith, and who then presented a limited-edition 1996 caricature of Sir John by London actor Clive Francis, pointing out as he did so that this captivating portrait had been beautifully inscribed by the award's namesake a few years before Gielgud's death in May 2000).

For more detail about this Gielgud commemoration, see the illustratated account of it that appeared on the website for Maryland Public Television. For copies of both the printed program and the June 2007 ESU newsletter that described it, please e-mail us. For a sampling of detail about previous Gielgud Award presentations, click here for background on the January 2000 festivities in honor of Kenneth Branagh at Middle Temple Hall in London, and click here for detail about a May 2003 Manhattan ceremony in honor of Lynn Redgrave at the National Arts Club.

As the previous paragraphs will have made clear, in addition to collaborating on Gielgud Award ceremonies, the Shakespeare Guild and ESU Washington also host dialogues about the playwright and his continuing presence in our lives. Guests for conversations under such rubrics as Spotlight on Theatre and Speaking of Shakespeare -- which have occurred not only in such DC venues as the Arts Club of Washington, the British Embassy, the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Dacor Bacon House, the National Press Club, the University Club, the Washington Club, and the Woman's National Democratic Club, but at the Algonquin Hotel and the National Arts Club in New York and at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in the Windy City -- have included directors Peter Brook and Robert Whitehead, actors Emery Battis, Keith Baxter, Simon Russell Beale, Brian Bedford, Zoe Caldwell, Richard Clifford, Edward Gero, Henry Goodman, Kitty Carlisle Hart, Hal Holbrook, Dana Ivey, Bill Irwin, Sir Derek Jacobi, Floyd King, Kevin Kline, Michael Learned, Lynn Redgrave, David Sabin, Patrick Stewart, Ted van Griethuysen, and Michael York, writers E. R. Braithwaite, Michael Dirda, George Garrett, Anthony Hecht, Ken Ludwig, Judith Martin, John Miller, Sir Peter Shaffer, Deborah Tannen, and Garry Wills, and journalists Robert Aubry Davis, Martin Goldsmith, Jane Horwitz, Rita Kempley, Peter Marks, Cokie Roberts, and Linda Wertheimer.

The Guild's 2007-8 SOS season at the National Arts Club commenced on Thursday, September 6, with NAC President O. Aldon James as principal guest. Mr. James was joined by educator Gail Badillo and director Ari Edelson, and the three of them conversed with series host John Andrews about "Shakespeare in Gramercy Park," a topic that elicited reflections about such stage luminaries as John Barrymore, Edwin Booth, Julia Marlowe, and Lynn Redgrave. On Monday, October 15, Washington writer and filmmaker Mark Olshaker showed clips from and chatted with Mr. Andrews about Discovering Hamlet, a 1990 PBS Video documentary on Kenneth Branagh's first professional appearance as the Prince of Denmark.On Monday, November 5, in a program originally scheduled for October 15, Mr. Andrews shared a dais with F. Murray Abraham for a dialogue that focused both on cinematic figures like Salieri in Amadeus (for which Mr. Abraham won an Academy Award) and on such dramatic characters as Shylock in a spring 2007 Theatre for a New Audience production of The Merchant of Venice that took Mr. Abraham and his fellow cast members to the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon for a presentation that helped conclude the Royal Shakespeare Company's phenomenal Complete Works festival. Mr. Abraham is currently starring in Mauritius at the Mahnattan Theatre Club, and he responded to several questions from attendees who'd seen that show. On Monday, December 10, Mr. Andrews conversed with Alvin Epstein, an actor, director, and producer who has earned plaudits for his performances in King Lear and dozens of other classics, and who has held key positions at such institutions as the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis, and the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven. On Monday, January 14, he discussed a variety of topics with Columbia University professor James Shapiro, a frequent contributor to the Guardian and other prestigious peroidicals and the author of such influential books as Shakespeare and the Jews and 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare. On Tuesday, February 5, Mr. Andrews was joined by Barbara O'Dwyer Lopez, Executive Director of the New York branch of the English-Speaking Union, for a discussion that marked the 199th birthday of Abraham Lincoln; among other things, Mr. Andrews and Mrs. Lopez talked about our 16th President's love of Shakespeare and about the playwright's role in an April 1865 occurrence that has been described as most dramatic moment in American history.

Looking back to previous years at the National Arts Club, attendees will remember such highlights as a fascinating conversation with television journalist Robert MacNeil on Monday evening, May 16, 2005. They'll also recall a dialogue with Michael Kahn (Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington and Director of the Drama Division of the Juilliard School in New York) on Monday, September 12, which launched the Guild's 2005-6 season. That event was followed on Monday, October 17, 2005, when we met with Adam Gopnik (New Yorker writer and author of such books as Paris to the Moon and The King in the Window). On Tuesday, November 15, we chatted with James Shapiro (Professor of English at Columbia University, frequent contributor to the New York Times Book Review, and author of Shakespeare and the Jews and A Year in the Life of Shakespeare - 1599). On Monday, January 9, 2006,we talked with actor F. Murray Abraham, who was preparing his Shylock for the TFANA production that would open at the Duke Theatre on 42nd Street before it traveled to England for the RSC's Complete Works Festival. On Monday, February 6, we met with actress Kathryn Meisle, who had been nominated for a Tony Award in Tartuffe and who had just completed an extended run in the Roundabout Theatre production of A Touch of the Poet with Gabriel Byrne. On Friday, March 10, we chatted with Barbara Romer, who discussed her plan to transform Castle Williams, a cylindrical structure on Governor's Island, into a "New Globe for the New World," an endeavor to be supervised by Norman Foster, a renowned British architect whose glass dome above the courtyard of London's British Museum provides something of a model for the project he would be undertaking in New York Harbor. On Monday, April 10, we put the spotlight on Flora Fraser, author of several well-received biographies, among them a recent book, Princesses, about the Six Daughters of George III; she talked about the 18th-century actors, directors, and playwrights who were doing so much at that time to keep the classical tradition vibrant. Our final gathering in the 2005-6 Speaking of Shakespeare series occurred on Monday, May 15, with Artistic Director Jeffrey Horowitz of Theatre for a New Audience. What followed a few weeks later was the 2006 Gielgud Award presentation, which took place on Monday, June 12, in association with the National Arts Club; our honoree was Christopher Plummer, and admirers such as Julie Andrews, Zoe Caldwell, Clive Francis, Robert MacNeil, Audra McDonald, and Lynn Redgrave sang his praises.

We launched our 2006-7 season at the National Arts Club on Monday, September 18, with Martin Platt, a New York producer with the Perry Street Theatre Company who founded the Alabama Shakespeare Festival. Following Mr. Platt on our schedule was journalist Ron Rosenbaum, who discussed his new book on The Shakespeare Wars with Mr. Andrews in two venues, at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington on Tuesday, October 10, and at the NAC in Gramercy Park on Monday, October 16. Next up at the National Arts Club was screenwriter and producer Eleanor Bergstein, who brought Dirty Dancing to the cinema and was now remounting that stirring musical at the Aldwych Theatre in London's West End; we talked with her on Monday, November 20. The following month, on Monday, December 4, our NAC guest was scholar David Kastan, Professor of English at Columbia University and the first American to serve as a general editor of the prestigious Arden Shakespeare edition. We opened the new year on Monday, January 8, 2007, with the multitalented Roger Rees, an actor who spent two decades with the Royal Shakespeare Company (where he achieved stardom in the title role of Nicholas Nickleby) and is now known for films such as Crazy Like a Fox, The Emperor's Club, and Frida, as well as for television appearances in such popular series as Cheers, Grey's Anatomy, and The West Wing. Our next guest, on Monday, February 26, was Kate Forbes, who was playing Portia in a production of The Merchant of Venice at Theatre for a New Audience with F. Murray Abraham as Shylock. For several weeks this show alternated in repertory with The Jew of Malta, featuring Ms. Forbes as Bellamira and Mr. Abraham as Barabas, and it then won plaudits at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Our following guest, on Monday, March 12, was New Yorker critic Adam Gopnik, who talked with Mr. Andrews about Shakespeare and Lincoln and signed copies of his latest book, Through the Children's Gate. A few weeks later, on Monday, April 9, Mr. Andrews spoke with award-winning actor Philip Goodwin, who had just completed a successful run at the Public Theatre as the Fool in a touching King Lear with Kevin Kline in the title role. We concluded our 2006-7 NAC season on Monday, May 7, with Alden and Virginia Vaughan, co-editors of the prestigious Arden edition of The Tempest and guest curators of Shakespeare in American Life, an informative exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library. Click here (and then either close out the box or click "Cancel" when you are prompted to supply a password) to obtain more information about our activities at the National Arts Club.

For ESU and Guild constituents in the Washington area, we provided two engagements in the late spring of 2007 that focused on the Royal Shakespeare Company Coriolanus that spent three weeks in the Eisenhower Theater at the Kennedy Center. One event, a dialogue with Timothy West (who played Menenius) and his equally talented wife Prunella Scales (best known to most Americans as Sybil in Fawlty Towers), occurred on Monday evening, May 30, at Dacor Bacon House. This event was attended by Heather Sanderson, who hosts an "Afternoon Tea" program on Maryland Public Television; for her account of the proceedings, see the July 2007 edition of MPT's Tea Times. The other gathering, a luncheon conversation with Janet Suzman (who played Volumnia), took place at the Arts Club of Washington on Wednesday, June 2. These programs rounded out a 2006-7 District of Columbia season that had featured well-attended dialogues with playwright Michael Frayn (author of Copenhagen, Democracy, and Noises Off) and celebrated Los Angeles teacher Rafe Esquith (author of Teach Like Your Hair's On Fire) and his fifth-grade "Hobart Shakespeareans" on Wednesday, November 8, and Wednesday, January 24, at the Lansburgh Theatre, as well as with actor Roger Rees, who talked about his new one-man show What You Will, on Monday, April 2, at the University Club.

To keep abreast of Shakespeare-related events in the Nation's Capital area, watch for updates on our Calendar page. For information about other Shakespearean attractions, whether in D.C., Manhattan, or elsewhere, e-mail either shakesguild@msn.com or esuwdc@msn.com or call (505) 988-9560.

Contact us for further information about Shakespearean activities.