We extend greetings to those who are new to the Guild, and gratitude
to those who've helped ensure the success of our many programs. As you browse these pages, clicking on the blue links that serve as navigating devices, you'll find details about our most significant initiatives, foremost among them an extraordinary event that occurred on Tuesday, April 26, 2022, in a setting that has long been cherished as one of the globe's most venerable shrines.
A WESTMINSTER ABBEY CEREMONY IN HONOR OF SIR JOHN GIELGUD
Among other things,
WESTMINSTER ABBEY is renowned for POETS'
CORNER, where Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and other authors are honored along with such dramatic artists as
Henry Irving, the first actor to be knighted, and
Laurence Olivier, a legend in whose name each season's award-worthy
achievements are now recognized by the Society
of London Theatre.
The focal point of our festivities was a beautiful new floor
monument, carved by WAYNE
HART, to celebrate the life and legacy of
SIR JOHN GIELGUD. By design the occasion linked two resonant birthdays,
Shakespeare's 458th (the playwright was baptized on April 26, 1564) and
Gielgud's 118th (the actor was born on April 14, 1904), and it featured remarks by four distinguished recipients of the Gielgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts.
To offer viewers a foretaste of what would be happening at the Abbey, actress and singer Shana
Farr of The Players
and Guild president John
Andrews hosted an online conversation in February of 2022 that permitted Mr.
Hart to describe his approach to this special commission and allow participants
to observe his first incisions in the marble slab that would soon be placed
in Poets' Corner. To revisit that poignant moment, click
here.
Several weeks after that illuminating dialogue, Sir Stanley Wells (Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust) published a deeply informative article in The Stage about Sir John's life and career. Among other things, he alluded to an October 2019 conversation at the Gielgud
Theatre between John Andrews of the Guild and Paul Edmondson of the Trust that prepared the way for what was to occur two and a half years later at the Abbey.
Participants in the Abbey's elegant program included
DAME JANET SUZMAN, who serves as a member of the
Sir John Gielgud Charitable Trust, vocalist SHANA
FARR, and four Gielgud Award recipients: producer and filmmater
SIR RICHARD EYRE, playwright
SIR DAVID HARE, and performers
DAME JUDI DENCH and SIR
IAN MCKELLEN.
To view the event's "Order of Service" click
here. And click on the blue links that follow for photographs of (a)
the printed booklet, (b)
The Very Reverend DR. DAVID HOYLE, Dean of Westminster, as he opens
the proceedings, (c) DAME JANET SUZMAN
as she reads Psalm 19:1-6, (d) SIR
RICHARD EYRE as he pays tribute to Sir John, (e) SIR
IAN MCKELLEN as he recites a Shakespearean passage from "The Book of
Sir Thomas More," (f) SIR DAVID HARE as
he extols the ease with which Sir John made the transition from classical
roles at the beginning of his career to more contemporary ones as he matured,
(g) DAME JUDI DENCH as she recites Sonnet
29, (h) SHANA FARR as she introduces her
rendering of "Jerusalem," and (i)
DAME JUDI as she unveils the memorial stone.
Not surprisingly, there was significant media coverage, including several vignettes that were included in a five-part Channel 5
documentary, Westminster Abbey: Behind Closed Doors, that aired in the UK before, during, and after our event and
featured several references to it and to key participants in the service. For a sampling of
stories on television's BBC One and in London newspapers such as the Daily
Mail, the Evening Standard, the Telegraph, and the
Times, click here.
And for additional highlights, including video links to key moments in the
service, see the articles in the Irvine
Times, in Yahoo
News, in Lynn
News, and in the
Bishop's Stortford Independent.
Attendees included Guardian critic Michael
Billington, who shared his reactions to "a deeply moving occasion" on Twitter
and said that the evening "struck just the right note: a mix of admiration
for Gielgud and delight in his humour." Billington's remarks were echoed by Helen Miller, a guest of sculptor Wayne Hart, who was charmed by "many of the anecdotes, which delightfully strayed from the order of the service." Also on hand for the occasion were such notables as actor and director
Keith Baxter, a close friend of Sir John's who'd conveyed greetings from him at a memorable Gielgud Award gala in January 2000, writer and Gielgud biographer
Giles Brandreth, who'd come up with the suggestion that Wayne Hart draw upon Gielgud's distinctive signature as he carved the memorial stone, arts consultant
Stephen Browning and his wife Julia, theatre critic
Michael Coveney, Gielgud biographer
Jonathan Croall, BBC radio host
Billy Differ, who also serves as Director of Operations for Delfont
Mackintosh Theatres, actress
Kate Gielgud, producers Piers
and Suzanne Gielgud, producer Thelma
Holt, actors Sir Derek Jacobi and
Richard Clifford, actress
Kathryn Meisle, film producer
David Parfitt, former Old Vic executive director Vivien
Wallace, actors
Timothy West and
Prunella Scales, and Shakespeare Birthplace Trust leaders
Sir Stanley Wells, Honorary President, and
Paul Edmondson, Head of Research.
One invitee who couldn't join us for the service, historian Garry Wills, shared a memory that captured how awestruck other actors could be by the performances that Sir John and his leading contemporaries delivered. In the mid-1970s, during the intermission of a riveting Broadway production of Sir Harold Pinter's "No Man's Land," Professor Wills chatted with American television star Peter Boyle, who was so overwhelmed by the brilliance of Gielgud and Sir Ralph Richardson that he couldn't help insisting that "They can't do that! Nobody can do that!"
As expected, the Abbey's Gielgud festivities supplied vivid reminders that Sir John
will always be revered for his extraordinary career as an actor, director,
and producer -- achievements that were extolled with particular wit and eloquence
in the deeply moving tributes that were delivered by SIR
RICHARD EYRE and SIR
DAVID HARE.
But it's equally important to remember that Sir John will also be cherished
for his witty repartee, and for his gifts as an eloquent memoirist, a shrewd
critic, and an indispensable theatre historian. Among his most lasting contributions
to our cultural lives will be the charming books and articles he wrote,
including several that he produced, along with a memorable interview that
was televised from his stately home in Wotton Underwood, with journalist,
arts presenter, and biographer John
Miller. Unfortunately, Mr. Miller and his wife Aileen were unable to join us at the Abbey, and John died a few months later. Click here for the lovely obituary that appeared shortly thereafter in The Guardian.
In 1976 while "No Man's Land" was delighting audiences at the Kennedy Center in Washington, Sir John visited the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill, and Mr. Andrews, who was then serving as the institution's Director of Academic Programs, had the pleasure of guiding him through an exhibition about "Shakespeare in America." Nearly two decades hence Sir John generously contributed an incisive overview about "Tradition,
Style, and the Shakespearean Actor Today" to William
Shakespeare: His World, His Work, His Influence, a 3-volume reference
set that was compiled by Mr. Andrews and published in 1985 by Scribners.
A few years later Sir John kindly provided illuminating forewords to the editor's Everyman Shakespeare
volumes of Julius Caesar and
The Tempest. And in 1994
he graciously permitted the Shakespeare Guild to establish a new
Award in his name.
For all they did to ensure the success of a historic occasion, the Guild is deeply indebted to
The
Very Reverend Dr. David Hoyle, Dean of Westminster, to architect Ptolemy
Dean, 19th Surveyor of the Fabric of Westminster Abbey, to Ian
Bartlett, Clerk of the Works at the Abbey, to The
Reverend Robert Latham, Sacrist at the Abbey, and to Eleanor
Lovegrove, the Abbey's Press and Communications Officer.
The Guild is also grateful for the indispensable financial support that was supplied by Gerry Ohrstrom and by Eric and Annika Andrews, as well as for the generous assistance that was provided by dozens of others, among them Catherine Allen, Sue Bellars, Letitia Chambers, Jan Denton, Jeffrey Hardy, and Lisa Andrews Hobart.
LOOKING BACK TO OTHER RECENT ATTRACTIONS
All but a handful of the GUILD's programs since the hiatus that resulted from Covid-19 have been produced online in collaboration with the
National Arts Club in
Manhattan. Our conversations with DAME
JUDI DENCH and SIR IAN MCKELLEN, which drew more than 2,000 viewers
apiece from around the globe, attracted the
NAC's largest audiences of 2021 and were featured in the Club's year-end
highlights.
Much of the credit for these successes belongs to
BEN HARTLEY, who served for several years as executive director of the Club, and on February 16, 2022, we chatted with him about the new initiatves
he brought to one of America's most vibrant institutions. To enjoy this
conversation, click here.
And click here to watch a March 18, 2022, chat with actor and visual artist CLIVE FRANCIS. Clive has played leading roles with the Royal
Shakespeare Company and has appeared in such films and television series
as A Clockwork Orange, The Crown, Sense and Sensibility,
and Yes, Prime Minister. A gifted illustrator, Clive has also produced
elegant caricatures
of SIR JOHN GIELGUD and other celebrities that are now displayed in
West End theatres such as the beautiful one that now bears Gielgud's name.
In 1994 Clive published Sir John: The
Many Faces of Gielgud, a 90th-birthday collection that featured
anecdotes from many of the dedicatee's most esteemed colleagues. And since
2005 a commemorative portrait that Clive produced in 1996 (copies of which
Sir John inscribed with his distinctive signature) has been presented to
recipients of the Gielgud
Award.
Owing to unanticipated developments that have significantly reduced the Guild's recent programming, our only event since 2022 has been a delightful online conversation in February 2023 with F.
MURRAY ABRAHAM. Murray received the Guild's 2010 Gielgud
Award at the National Arts Club, and his dozens of other honors include the Oscar trophy he earned for his brilliant portrayal of Antonio Salieri in director Milos Forman's 1984 film version of dramatist Peter Shaffer's Amadeus. To watch a program that was elegantly hosted by the NAC's Nadine Heidinger, click here. And to enjoy not only that interview but several previous conversations that have been brought together, thanks to Talia Pura and Greg Malone of Theatre Santa Fe, click here.
A MEMORABLE 2021 SEASON OF FASCINATING ONLINE CONVERSATIONS
We opened our 2021 SPEAKING OF SHAKESPEARE series on Wednesday,
February 24, with a conversation that focused on
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 near London, click here. And to enjoy an engaging profile of Dame Judi that had appeared a short time earlier in AARP: The Magazine, click
here.
A week later, on Wednesday, March 3, we enjoyed a wide-ranging NAC@Home
dialogue with IAN MCKELLEN
that focused primarily on his dozens of Shakespearean roles. In 1996 Sir
Ian had received the Guild's inaugural Gielgud
Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts during a historically
resonant ceremony at the Folger
Shakespeare Library in Washington, and at several points he recalled
that illustrious occasion. To revisit that conversation, click
here.
On Tuesday, April 20, we focused on playwright DAVID
HARE. Having taken part in our 1999 Gielgud Award presentation
to Dame Judi Dench at the Barrymore
Theatre in New York, Sir David 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.
A few days later, on Saturday, April 24, Guild President John Andrews and
cabaret artist SHANA FARR of The Players co-hosted a 2021 Shakespeare's
Birthday chat 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 that dialogue, click here.
Another of 2021's highlights occurred on Monday, June 14, when Mr. Andrews
arranged a delightful conversation with 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'd asked Ms. Stamberg, who 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 interviewed 1998
Gielgud laureate Zoe
Caldwell and her husband Robert Whitehead at the Folger Shakespeare
Library. What led to our 2021 program with her was a remarkable new
book, Susan,
Linda, Nina, and Cokie, a tribute to "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 dialogue with the first of its title characters,
a legend whose many honors include a star on the Hollywood Boulevard Walk
of Fame.
A few days later, on Tuesday, June 22, cabaret artist Shana
Farr, who serves as Vice-President for
The Players, hosted a wide-ranging discussion with Guild president JOHN
ANDREWS. To enjoy this dialogue, click here.
Our final event of 2021, on Sunday, September 19, was a delightful follow-up
conversation with IAN MCKELLEN,
who by then was thrilling audiences in a production of Hamlet at
Theatre Royal Windsor. At 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 career in 1891 at the
Brooklyn Academy of Music. Co-hosted by cabaret artist Shana
Farr and Guild president John
Andrews, this program was presented under the auspices of
The Players. To watch it, click
here.
Click here for background
on the Guild's signature Speaking of Shakespeare series, which
commenced with eminent director Peter
Brook in 1998 at the National
Press Club in Washington, and has included programs at the British
Embassy, the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the University Club, the Washington
Club, and the Woman's National Democratic Club in D.C., the Chicago Shakespeare
Theater in the Windy City, and such New York institutions as the Algonquin
Hotel, the English-Speaking Union, the Lambs, the Princeton Club, and the
Schimmel Center at Pace University.
And for details about offerings that have been presented in previous seasons,
click on the years that follow: 1998,
1999, 2000,
2001, 2002,
2003, 2004,
2005, 2006,
2007, 2008,
2009, 2010,
2011, 2012,
2013, 2014,
2015, 2016,
2017, 2018,
2019, and 2020.
COMMEMORATING TWO SIGNIFICANT GIELGUD MILESTONES
Looking back 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.
GARDEN-FRESH SHAKESPEARE IN SANTA FE
Meanwhile 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 has continued to broaden its scope through liaisons with organizations
such as the Lensic
Performing Arts Center (contributing "Great
Conversations" to its online programming), the Museum
of New Mexico Foundation, and the New
Mexico Actors Lab.
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. 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.
To encourage supporters to help sustain the work of a dramatist who was
still electrifying audiences in his 454th year, we offered 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. A few years later, on October 26, 2023, at Santa Fe's beautiful Quail Run condominium, Mr. Andrews adapted those "Reflections" for a presentation he whimsically described as a "QR Code for Construing Shakespeare's Magic."
A TRIBUTE TO THE AUTHOR OF "TO SIR, WITH LOVE"
As we reflect on the recent death of Sidney
Poitier, a great actor and an inspiring leader, our thoughts return
to the life and legacy of the gifted teacher, writer, and cultural ambassador
who inspired one of Mr. Poitier's most memorable roles.
On Saturday, March 25, 2017, the Guild played a small role in a Washington
National Cathedral memorial service for E.
R. Braithwaite, the author who gave us To Sir, With Love, a
1959 literary best-seller that became a celebrated 1967 film with Poitier
in the role that Mr. Braithwaite's autobiographical novel had made famous.
Mr. Braithwaite died at the age of 104 on December 12, 2016, and Guild president
John Andrews was one of the three speakers who eulogized him in the Cathedral's
lovely Bethlehem Chapel.
The service concluded with an organ rendering of Lulu's musical tribute
to "Sir," a recording that had been popular music's number-one single a
half-century earlier. Click here to watch a February 2007 conversation between Mr. Andrews and Mr.
Braithwaite that has been telecast several times on C-SPAN's weekend
Book TV service and now seems particularly resonant. And click here for links to Mr. Andrews' C-SPAN appearances with other authors,
among them ecologist Lester R. Brown, political leader Susan Eisenhower,
Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells, and cultural historian A. N. Wilson.
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 a wide
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, literary and drama critics, arts journalists, and other cultural leaders.
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THE GUILD'S EFFORTS
By design most of the Guild's offerings have always been admission-free; but that doesn't mean they're cost-free. So any help you provide will be gratefully
received and promptly acknowledged. If you wish to contribute,
either by enrolling or renewing as a
member or by assisting us with a tax-exempt donation,
we'll be delighted.
