Open Stages: Amateur Shakespeare Past and Present

Wednesday 17 October 2012 at 7.30 pm at the Swedenborg Hall, 20 Bloomsbury Way, London WC1A 2TH

 BY PROFESSOR MICHAEL DOBSON

 Professor Dobson is Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon Avon, and Professor of Shakespeare Studies, University of Birmingham.  His career as a teacher and writer about Shakespeare’s plays and poems has been devoted not just to examining them in their historical contexts, but also exploring how they have stimulated and enabled the creativity of other people across time.  His current collaborative research project examines the Royal Shakespeare Company’s ‘Open Stages’ project, an experiment in involving amateur groups in the organization’s activities, as a way of exploring the range of aesthetic and social purposes served by the non-professional performance of Shakespeare in different local contexts around Britain. 

 In the Chair:  Dr Marion O’Connor