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. Our 19th annual contest for students in grades 10-12 took place Monday, March 10, at Sidney Harman Hall, the centerpiece of the new Harman Center for the Arts, and we're delighted to report that it was co-hosted by, and presented in partnership with, the Shakespeare Theatre Company. We're exceedingly grateful to everyone at the STC, but we extend special thanks to Gregory Smith, who oversees the company's education division.

Placing first in this year's contest was Shelby Coley, a junior at Benjamin Banneker High School in the District of Columbia, who recited Sonnet 116 ("Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments") and performed the celebrated sleepwalking scene from Macbeth. One of the judges, playwright and screenwriter Mark Stein, said that he and his colleagues agreed that Ms. Coley's Lady Macbeth "had a depth that so belied the actor's age, that we asked ourselves -- and could not answer -- how she harnessed it." At least part of the explanation may be the guidance provided by her talented and dedicated teacher-sponsor, Charles Feeser. Ms. Coley will now proceed to Lincoln Center in New York for the National Shakekspeare Competition, to take place 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 with a recitation of Sonnet 57 and a rendering of the Jailer's Daughter in The Two Noble Kinsman, and Noah Schechter, a student of Tyler Reedy of Pikesville High School in Baltimore, who placed third with Sonnet 130 and a soliloquy by Prince Hal from Henry IV, Part 1.

Mark Olshaker, who was overseeing his first Competition as the new Executive Director of ESU Washington, said that "according to people who've attended this event regularly, this year's participants were the best in recent memory." Thanks to the generous support of Steve Hubbard, all of the entrants received congratulatory certificates and copies of a beautiful volume from the National Geographic Society. The students who placed in the top three were also presented with monetary prizes.

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.

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.

Looking back a 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. Significant 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 we're delighted to report that 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 Gracie's presentation can now been seen on YouTube. For details about everything that happened at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater, and for links to recorded segments, visit www.esuus.org.

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. The other seven finalists were Miguel Amaguana, a student of Ginny MacNemar at Northwest High School in Montgomery County, Maryland, Daniella Furman, a student of Debra Brennan at Washington Math Science Technology Public Charter High School in Washington, D.C., Kajsa Linn Guernsey, a student of Paul Rubenstein at Fairfax High School in Fairfax County, Virginia, Maureen Raj, a student of Kelly Newman O'Connor at Montgomery Blair High School in Montgomery County, Stephanie Ramsey, a student of R. L. Mirabal at Lake Braddock High School in Fairfax County, Chassi Slappy, a student of Patricia Veneziani at Northern High School in Calvert County, Maryland, and Rosalind Wills, a student of Michael D'Anna at James H. Blake High School in Montgomery County.

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 will be applying 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.

An additional prize for 2007 went to Josh Thelin of the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Academy for Classical Acting, who received the $2,500 Walter L. Wright III Award to further his preparation for work in the dramatic profession's most demanding repertory. Mr. Thelin's certificate was bestowed by Mr. Wright's widow, Dr. Marjorie J. Williams, who had generously pledged to continue providing a stipend that had been funded by her husband "Tony" until his untimely death on April 23, 2006. Previous honorees have included Carol Roscoe (2002), Bob McClure (2003), Kate Riley (2004), Elizabeth Webster (2005), and Carie Yonekawa (2006).

In addition to its Shakespeare Competition for the National Capital Region, a contest for students in grades 10-12, 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 described 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 administrative head, John F. Andrews, from April 2001 through November 2007.

The Guild's next offering will be a special evening with playwright Edward Albee on Monday, May 12, at 8:00 p.m. at the National Arts Club (15 Gramercy Park South) in Manhattan. In a gathering that will salute 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 will join other admirers of Mr. Albee in a conversation that will celebrate the achievements of a dramatist whose many honors include three Pulitzer Prizes and two Tony Awards. The Cherry Lane Theatre is currently presenting two of Mr. Albee's early one-act plays, The American Dream (1960) and The Sandbox (1959), in a revival, starring Judith Ivey, that has been directed by a phenomenal artist who recently marked his 80th birthday. For more details about and $25 tickets for this dialogue, call the Guild at (505) 988-9560 or e-mail shakesguild@msn.com.

The Guild's most recent event was its 2008 Gielgud Award presentation, a 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 recently won the prestigious Evening Standard Award for his performance in the title role of Macbeth at the Gielgud Theatre in London. That production also won two Olivier Awards on Sunday night, March 9, including a trophy for its imaginative direction by Rupert Goold, and it garnered nominations in five categories (among them best actor and best revival). After its brief season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, it will transfer to Broadway's Lyceum Theatre for an eight-week run that begins on Friday, March 28.

Mr. Stewart's "fearsome insight and theatrical fire" has been enthusiastically praised by Ben Brantley of the New York Times, who notes that he 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 says that "Patrick Stewart is masterly; he makes the character's journey from tentativeness to tyranny with unhistrionic aplomb." Lahr has equal praise for "the fine, fierce Kate Fleetwood" as the protagonist's ambitious Lady. And these comments echo those of virtually every London reviewer, many of whom, according to Sarah Lyall of the New York Times, have been 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 luminaries who could be present for the gala, a number of messages arrived from stars who couldn't be on hand for the ceremony, among them congratulatory wishes from such previous Gielgud laureates as Sir Ian McKellen (1996), Sir Derek Jacobi (1997), Lynn Redgrave (2003), and the eminent director who had received the prize a few months earlier.

For more information about the 2008 Gielgud festivities, including a copy of the printed program for the gala, e-mail shakesguild@msn.com or esuwdc@msn.com.

The Shakespeare Guild's 2007 Gielgud Award ceremony occurred 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).

As he accepted the 2007 Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts (an accolade whose previous recipients have included Kenneth Branagh, Zoe Caldwell, Dame Judi Dench, Sir Derek Jacobi, Kevin Kline, Sir Ian McKellen, Christopher Plummer, and Lynn Redgrave) Mr. Kahn talked about how humbling it had been to work with Shakespeare's scripts, many of them several times over, during a career that had now spanned four decades. He said that if there was anything he'd learned from the experience, it could perhaps be summed up best in the observation that what makes the Stratford genius unique is the fact that "he doesn't tell us what to think." What he does instead, according to Mr. Kahn, is something that is far more interesting and significant: by subtle and complex indirection, he teaches us "what to think about." For more detail about this year's Gielgud commemoration, and for copies of both the printed program and the June 2007 ESU newsletter that describes 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.

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 local 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. Next up in the series, as noted above, will be playwright Edward Albee, in a dialogue that will take place on Monday, May 12 at 8:00 p.m. in the Grand Gallery of the National Arts Club. A few weeks later, on Monday evening, June 9, our guest will be Jeffrey Horowitz, artist director of Theatre for a New Audience. Tickets both each event are $25 a person.

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, who nurtured a good deal of Julie Taymor's early work. 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 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. The other event, a luncheon conversation with Janet Suzman (who played Volumnia), took place at the Arts Club of Washington on Wednesday, June 2. These gatherings rounded out a 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, where the Guild and the ESU spent much of 2006-7 as participants in a city-wide Shakespeare in Washington festival, watch for updates on our Calendar page. For details about other Shakespearean attractions, both in Manhattan and elsewhere, call (505) 988-9560 or e-mail either shakesguild@msn.com or esuwdc@msn.com.

Contact us for further information about Shakespearean activities.