We extend warm greetings to those who are new to the GUILD, and gratitude
to those who've contributed to the success of our many programs. As you
browse these pages, clicking on the blue links that serve as navigating
devices, you'll see that we're now using online formats for most of
our offerings. All but a handful have been produced in collaboration
with the National Arts Club
in Manhattan, and our conversations with DAME
JUDI DENCH and SIR IAN MCKELLEN, which drew more than 2,000 viewers apiece
from around the globe, have attracted the
NAC's largest audiences of the 2021 season.
At the moment we're focused on a special celebration that will take place Saturday evening, April 23, in
Westminster Abbey. One of the globe's most iconic settings, this historic
institution is renowned, among other things, for Poets'
Corner, a sacred spot where legendary authors such as Geoffrey Chaucer and William
Shakespeare are honored along with a significant number of other distinguished artists, among them
performers such as Henry Irving (the first actor to be knighted) and Laurence
Olivier (a star whose name is attached to to the awards that recognize each year's leading theatrical achievements in London's West End). We're delighted to announce that a new memorial, a floor plaque
to commemorate the life and legacy of Olivier's most eminent contemporary,
SIR JOHN GIELGUD, will be dedicated as the highlight of the Guild's upcoming celebration
of Shakespeare's 458th birthday and Gielgud's 118th. Details about this special gathering, and about several programs to prepare the way for it, will be
provided shortly.
RECENT ATTRACTIONS
Our most recent event, on Sunday, September
19, was a delightful conversation with
IAN MCKELLEN, who was thrilling audiences in a production of Hamlet
at Theatre Royal Windsor. Now 82, Sir Ian was starring in an age-blind,
color-blind, and gender-blind presentation of the drama with which Players
founder
Edwin Booth concluded his acting career in 1891 at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music. Co-hosted by cabaret artist Shana
Farr and Guild president John
Andrews, it was presented under the auspices of
The Players. To watch it,
click
here.
Another recent offering -- also hosted by Ms. Farr, who serves as Vice-President
for The Players --
was a wide-ranging discussion with JOHN ANDREWS himself. To enjoy this dialogue, which occurred Tuesday,
June 22, click here.
Two months earlier, on Saturday, April 24, Ms. Farr and Mr. Andrews had
co-hosted a Shakespeare's Birthday gathering with Oscar laureate F.
MURRAY ABRAHAM, an exchange that celebrated what has long been revered
as Edwin Booth's club, a historic institution that was founded by the actor
in 1888. To watch it, click
here.
An earlier highlight, on Monday, June 14, was a delightful conversation
between Mr. Andrews and SUSAN
STAMBERG, one of the radio
pioneers who made All Things Considered an essential part
of our lives. In 1999 Mr. Andrews hosted an evening with Linda
Wertheimer and Cokie Roberts, two of Susan's NPR colleagues, at the
National Press Club. Three years earlier he had asked Ms. Stamberg, who'd
helped launch the Gielgud
Award in 1994, to interview Kenneth
Branagh (who would go on to to win that trophy in January of 2000) at
the Smithsonian Institution. Two years later Ms. Stamberg nterviewed 1998
Gielgud laureate Zoe
Caldwell and her husband Robert Whitehead at the Folger Shakespeare
Library. What led to this summer's program with her was a remarkable new
book, Susan,
Linda, Nina, and Cokie: The Extraordinary Story of the Founding Mothers
of NPR, by arts journalist Lisa
Napoli. It's a riveting narrative, and if you click
here you'll enjoy a memorable chat with the first of its title characters,
a legend whose many honors include a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk
of Fame.
On Tuesday, April 20, we focused on playwright DAVID
HARE. Sir David took part in our 1999 Gielgud Award presentation
to Dame Judi Dench at the Barrymore
Theatre in New York, and he himself received our 2017 Gielgud trophy at London's venerable Guildhall.
To watch a memorable conversation
with an extraordinary dramatist, screenwriter, director, and performer,
click here.
Looking back to other special moments in a series that has attracted thousands
of viewers from around the world, one was a delightful exchange with
IAN MCKELLEN. Sir Ian had received the Guild's inaugural Gielgud
Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts during a historically
resonant 1996 ceremony at the Folger
Shakespeare Library in Washington. And he rejoined us Wednesday, March
3, for an NAC@Home program that focused primarily on his dozens
of Shakespearean roles. To watch it,
click here.
On Wednesday, February 24, we chatted with one of Sir Ian's most cherished
theatrical colleagues,
JUDI DENCH. The Guild had honored Dame Judi with its 1999 Gielgud
trophy at Broadway’s Barrymore
Theatre during a gala that featured such luminaries
as Keith Baxter, Zoe Caldwell, Rebecca Eaton, David Hare, Hal Holbrook,
Robert MacNeil, Ronald Pickup, Toby Stephens, and Christopher Plummer. To
enjoy this charming visit to Dame Judi's home a few miles south of London,
click
here.
A few weeks earlier, in late December of 2020, we'd saluted Judi's friend
RICHARD EYRE, who oversaw Britain's National Theatre during a decade
that featured such triumphs as a touring Richard III, with Sir
Ian McKellen in the title role, and the global premiere of Angels in
America. A young Judi Dench influenced Sir Richard's decision to become
a director, and he took part in the 1999 Gielgud ceremony that
paid tribute to her. Sir Richard has also enriched our lives with a number
of cinematic gems, among them Iris and Notes on a Scandal,
both of which starred Dame Judi, and a recent King Lear with Sir
Anthony Hopkins in the title role. Click
here for a riveting hour with one of our most visionary dramatic artists.
We'll soon be announcing future engagements, among them one with ROSEMARY
HARRIS, who took part in our 2004 Gielgud
Centenary Gala. A member of the Broadway Hall of Fame, Ms. Harris
is celebrated not only for her acclaimed stage performances on both sides
of the Atlantic, but for her stellar roles on film and television.
Meanwhile, returning to what now seems like a previous era, in October of
2019 we celebrated the 25th anniversaries of two Gielgud
milestones (the establishment of an award in Sir John's name, and the
renaming of a venue that had been known as the Globe when he performed there)
with festivities in honor of producer
CAMERON MACKINTOSH that took place in a pair of historic settings: the
venerable Guildhall in the
City of London and the newly-refurbished Gielgud
Theatre in London's West End. It was Sir
Richard Eyre, who'd been honored in Sir John's name the previous year,
who bestowed our trophy on Sir
Cameron.
While those GIELGUD festivities were taking place in the UK, the
Guild was augmenting its popular SPEAKING
OF SHAKESPEARE offerings in Manhattan's Gramercy Park, with new
attractions such as Afternoon Salons at the National Arts Club
and an expanding roster of performance-focused engagements next door at
The Players.
And out West, in the Land of Enchantment, after several seasons of support
for productions at St. John's College and the Santa Fe Botanical Garden,
the Guild was broadening its scope through new liaisons with organizations
such as Journey Santa
Fe, the Lensic
Performing Arts Center (contributing "Great
Conversations" to its online programming), the Museum
of New Mexico Foundation, the New
Mexico Actors Lab, and Theatre
Santa Fe.
MAKING THE MOST OF THE GUILD'S RESOURCES
For detail about these and other endeavors, we encourage you to browse these
pages, clicking on the blue links that serve as navigation keys to an ever-expanding
array of enriching material. Among other things, you'll observe that our
BACKGROUND
section provides a rich variety of perspectives
on Shakespeare's world, work, and influence, many of them featuring unique
contributions by or about eminent actors, directors, producers, playwrights,
historians, critics, arts journalists, and other cultural leaders.
If you wish to support our activities, either by enrolling or renewing as
a Guild member or by assisting us
with a tax-exempt donation,
we'll be delighted. By design most of our offerings are admission-free;
but of course that doesn't mean they're cost-free. So any help you provide
will be gratefully received and promptly acknowledged.
SPEAKING OF SHAKESPEARE PROGRAMS IN 2020
On September 13 the Guild joined Santa Fe's Lensic Performing Arts Center,
for a lively dialogue with JIM
DALE, a celebrated and remarkably versatile performer
who garnered an Oscar nomination as lyricist for the theme song in "Georgy
Girl," who won a Tony Award for his title role in "Barnum," and who holds
multiple Grammy Awards for his evocative recordings of "Harry Potter." Click
here to enjoy the charming anecdotes he shared with Lensic executive
director Joel Aalberts and Guild president John Andrews about his brilliant
career as a singer, composer, actor, director, raconteur, and narrator.
And click
here to watch a conversation with Harvard's
STEPHEN GREENBLATT that was recorded in June of 2020 but held for release
until mid-August. It commmenced with a discussion of the prescient op-ed
that Professor Greenblatt published in the New
York Times a few weeks before America's 2016 presidential election.
It then focused on Tyrant, his 2018 volume about Shakespeare's
insights into how corrupt authoritarians seize and maintain power. From
there it proceeded to a broader consideration of the classical education
a budding playwright received in grammar school, and the ways in which it
equipped him to produce the masterpieces that led a fellow dramatist, Ben
Jonson, to eulogize him in the 1623 First Folio as an artist who was "not
of an age, but for all time." For a vivid illustration of Professor Greenblatt's
influence on today's political discourse, see a Times column by
Maureen Dowd that appeared in early
August of 2020.
On June 23 we arranged a special afternoon session with F.
MURRAY ABRAHAM, a gathering that permitted the Guild to introduce an
actor who grew up in the Southwest to his many admirers at Santa Fe's Lensic
Performing Arts Center. To watch this conversation, click
here. A few weeks later, on August 12, we enjoyed a delightful National
Arts Club exchange with actor JOHN
DOUGLAS THOMPSON. He had recently portrayed the Duke of York in the New
York Public Theater's WNYC
audio presentation of Richard
II, and that was one of the many topics we addressed with him.
To watch this engaging dialogue, which had been promoted by both Broadway
World and Thought
Gallery and attracted viewers and pertinent questions from around the
nation, click here.
Many of the viewers who joined us for that event had also participated in
a May 26 dialogue with JAMES
SHAPIRO of Columbia University.
Click here to watch an NAC discussion that explored Shakespeare
in a Divided America, a timely volume that the New York Times
has recently identified as one of The
Ten Best Books of 2020.
As we recall the days before Covid-19 changed our lives, many of us are
now feeling nostalgic about evenings such as the one that occurred on February
26 at The Players (16 Gramercy Park South in Manhattan) with two of
America's most distinguished
visual artists, illustrators JAMES
MCMULLAN and EDWARD
SOREL. This exchange, which took place in the club's stately Hampden-Booth
Library, was recorded by Ed's son, Leo
Sorel, and thanks to him and his colleague James
Salzano we hope to make it available soon on YouTube.
Because of the Trumpidemic that followed
that special occasion, we've postponed several of our signature SOS
offerings. Yet to be rescheduled, either as programs with in-person attendees
or as online offerings, are conversations with
Ron Rosenbaum (a prolific
journalist whose publications include The
Shakespeare Wars), with Shana
Farr (a gifted cabaret singer), and with Scott
Newstok (an esteemed scholar who's drawing upon "Lessons from a Renaissance
Education" to explain How to Think Like Shakespeare).
During the interim we encourage you to revisit a newly-resonant 2007 C-SPAN2
interview with E. R. Braithwaite, the author who gave us To
Sir, With Love, a globally-renowned, best-selling 1959 memoir about
racial struggles in post-war London that provided Sidney Poitier with one
of his finest roles in an award-winning film whose theme song, recorded
by Lulu, was Billboard magazine's top single of 1967. For more
detail about Ambassador Braithwaite, who died in 2016 at the age of 104,
visit OTHER
OFFERINGS.
For information about previous highlights in the Guild's two decades of
SPEAKING engagements, not only at multiple venues in New York,
but at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater in the Windy City, at the New Mexico
Museum of Art in Santa Fe, and at such institutions as the British Embassy,
the National Press Club, the University Club, and the Woman's National Democratic
Club in Washington, click here.
THE GUILD'S 2019 GIELGUD AWARD CEREMONY IN LONDON
As noted above, our most recent Gielgud Award, presented on Monday,
October 28, 2019, paid tribute to the extraordinary achievements of Sir
Cameron Mackintosh. Once again our Award
festivities took place in conjunction with the UK
Theatre Awards Luncheon. And once again our Award selection
was featured in Broadway
World and The
Stage. As it happened, however, this celebration occurred, not
as usual in London's venerable Guildhall on Sunday, October 27, but at the
beautiful Gielgud
Theatre the following afternoon. As you'll see if you click on a brief
overview about the gathering,
it proved to be a memorable occasion, and one that paid tribute not only
to our 2019 Award recipient but to Clive
Francis, the actor and visual artist whose caricatures are among the
highlights of a venue that is now a shrine to the Gielgud legacy.
Fifteen years earlier, on April 19, 2004, the Guild had joined the RSC and
RADA in that resonant setting for a remarkable Gielgud
Centenary Gala. Our 2019 gathering vividly recalled that occasion.
But it also commemorated two anniversaries that date back a quarter of a
century: (a) the establishment of a new
award in Sir John's name, which was announced on April 24, 1994, at
the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, and (b) the renaming of a
venue
on Shaftesbury Avenue that had been known as the Globe prior to November
2, 1994, when it became the Gielgud Theatre in recognition of Sir John's
exemplary accomplishments, not least among them fifteen major productions
in that prestigious setting.
Bestowing our 2019 trophy was Sir
Richard Eyre, who was busy directing a revival of Mary Poppins
at London's Prince
Edward Theatre. In addition to his many achievements in the profession
for which he is best known, Sir Richard is a distinguished producer, filmmaker,
and author, and it was he who received our 2018
Gielgud Award at that year's UK Theatre Awards luncheon. Sir Richard's riveting television
production of King Lear, with Sir Anthony Hopkins in the title role, had debuted
a few weeks earlier on Amazon Prime Video. Meanwhile his evocative feature
film, The Children Act, starring Emma Thompson, Stanley Tucci,
and Fionn Whitehead in a screenplay by novelist Ian McEwan, was gripping
filmlovers around the globe. And if those credits were not enough, Sir Richard
was also directing
Laura Linney in My Name Is Lucy Barton, a "beautifully nuanced
solo performance" (to quote Michael Billington of The Guardian)
that would open on Broadway in January 2019.
Our 2018 award had been presented by Sir
Ian McKellen, the Guild's inaugural Gielgud laureate, who was
himself appearing in a West End staging of King Lear that had been
shared cinematically with audiences throughout the world. When he'd received
his own trophy, during a ceremony
at the Folger Shakespeare Library on May 20, 1996, Sir Ian had graced the
occasion not only with praise for Sir John, but with a powerful recitation
from The Booke of Sir Thomas Moore, relating the words that Shakespeare
had composed for the script's title
character to remarks that Justice Anthony Kennedy had uttered earlier
that day while he was delivering a pivotal Supreme Court ruling that "no
state may 'deem a class of persons a stranger to its laws.'"
As he bestowed the 2018 Gielgud trophy, Sir Ian recalled how much
Sir John did, not only to exemplify meticulous standards in his own presentations
of Shakespeare and other playwrights, but to encourage and support the efforts
of other performers, among them those who were just beginning their careers.
Sir Ian extolled Richard Eyre for the same qualities, and he emphasized
how much everyone who cherishes the dramatic arts has benefited from his
many contributions to our cultural lives.
In response, Sir Richard praised McKellen as "a wonderful actor and a very
good friend, and the natural artistic son of John Gielgud." And he amplified
Sir Ian's remarks about Sir John, observing that Gielgud's focus on building
strong repertory ensembles prepared the way for such extraordinary institutions
as the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. With this in
mind he noted, in an aside that was fervently applauded by an appreciative
UK Theatre audience, that he was "constantly bewildered by the fact that
local authorities and government can't see what an extraordinary, unique
asset" such treasures are, not only in London but throughout the United
Kingdom.
Media accounts of the festivities included stories in BBC
News, BT.com,
Irish
News, and York
Press. Click here
for visual highlights of a deeply moving occasion. And click here
for background on the Award.
GARDEN-FRESH SHAKESPEARE IN SANTA FE
During the summers of 2017 and 2018 the Guild co-hosted SHAKESPEARE
IN THE GARDEN, joining the Santa Fe Botanical Garden and Shakespeare
in Santa Fe on productions of The
Tempest in 2017 and A
Midsummer Night's Dream in 2018. During the summer of 2019 we collaborated
with Santa
Fe Classic Theater on a presentation of Romeo
and Juliet that ran from May 31 through June 9 and was glowingly
reviewed by the Santa
Fe Reporter. Once again tickets sold rapidly, and we were immensely
grateful for the Bardtenders
who joined us for another season of theatrical charm. For background on
the play, attendees were referred to a Routledge anthology of commentary
about what is often described as the world's most resonant love story. They
also enjoyed a KSFR
radio feature about the production, hosted by SFBG's Clayton Bass and
Lindsay Taylor and featuring director Patrick Briggs and Guild president
John Andrews.
As we put the finishing touches on our third presentation of SHAKESPEARE
IN THE GARDEN, we were still relishing what the Guild had co-produced
on Santa Fe's bustling Museum Hill in previous summers. For details about
a 2018 Dream show that was warmly welcomed, for example, click
here. And for background on
the presentation, see Jennifer Levin's article about "The Ecology of Shakespeare"
in Pasatiempo and listen to radio interviews in which the
Garden's Clayton Bass and the Guild's John Andrews talked with KSFR
host Lynn Cline. Also of interest might be a program that Peter
Lloyd hosted with musician Mary Springfels and Mr. Andrews on KSFR's
"Classical Sunday."
To encourage supporters to help sustain the work of a dramatist who was
still electrifying audiences in his 454th year, we established a Bardtenders
support group for SHAKESPEARE IN THE GARDEN. And we offered cultivation
events such as a TLC
dialogue that took place Tuesday, July 31st. This gathering, under the auspices
of Theatre Santa
Fe, followed a March 29th Food
for Thought dinner at La
Fonda on the Plaza and a May 29th benefit, Ever
the Twain, which took place at the Lensic
Performing Arts Center. Under the direction of Lois
Rudnick and Jonathan Richards, this revival of a fantasia
that enchanted attendees in January 2016 was enthusiastically received,
and those who arranged it were eager to revive it in other settings.
As we relished the highlights of our 2018 production of A Midsummer
Night's Dream, we were also savoring an SFBG rendering of The
Tempest that graced the Garden amphitheater in August 2017. More
than 1500 attendees applauded a show that featured superb acting, charming
music and special effects, and an exquisite set by designer Jay Bush. To
learn more about SHAKESPEARE
IN THE GARDEN 2017, read the informative background article by
Jennifer
Levin and a review by James
M. Keller in Pasatiempo, the Santa Fe New Mexican's
weekly cultural supplement.
This production was brilliantly directed by Nagle Jackson, who'd helped
artistic director Rachel Kelly preside over several seasons of Shakespeare
in Santa Fe between 1997 and 2002. Mr. Jackson had returned to La Tierra
Encantada in 2013 for a sprightly St. John's College medley that proved
to be a complete Delight,
indeed one that Mr. Keller described in Pasatiempo as that summer's
"most endearing revival." Our 2017 Tempest took place in a magic
circle that evoked such predecessors as the amphitheaters of Greek antiquity,
the "Wooden O" that Shakespeare evokes in his prologue to Henry V,
and the Zia Sun Symbol that adorns the New Mexico flag. Pulsating with reminders
that an aging playwright was scripting his valedictory drama at the same
time that a Spanish army was seeking to establish a "brave new world" on
terrain which had been occupied for centuries by earlier settlers, this
rendering of a classic score proved especially pertinent for audiences in
the Southwest.
For an overview about The Tempest, attendees were encouraged to
read the foreword that Sir
John Gielgud generously contributed to John Andrews' 1994 Everyman
Shakespeare edition of the play, as well as the Editor's
Introduction that followed it. They also enjoyed Ellen Berkovitch's
KSFR
radio feature about Shakespeare in the Garden, as well as conversations
with KVSF host Richard Eeds and KBAC host Honey Harris. In response to the
show, several wrote letters
that appeared in the New Nexican. And a few weeks after the production
concluded, Mr. Andrews offered some late-September "Reflections
on The Tempest" as part of a lecture
series that he'd inaugurated a quarter of a century earlier at Grand
Valley State University in Michigan.
