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, 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 executive director
BEN HARTLEY. Since his arrival at the NAC in 2018, Mr. Hartley has accomplished
great things, and on February 16 we chatted with him about the new initiatves
he's brought to one of America's most vibrant institutions. To enjoy this
conversation click here.
And click
here to watch a March 18 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, he 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 he 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.
A WESTMINSTER ABBEY CEREMONY IN HONOR OF SIR JOHN GIELGUD
We're now savoring an event that took place Tuesday evening, April 26, in
WESTMINSTER ABBEY. One of the globe's most iconic settings, this venerable
institution is renowned, among other things, for POETS'
CORNER, where Geoffrey Chaucer, William Shakespeare, and other authors
are honored along with such legendary 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 focus of our proceedings was a beautiful new floor
monument, carved by WAYNE
HART, to commemorate 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 to give viewers
a foretaste of the Abbey festivities, actress and singer Shana
Farr of The Players
and Guild president John
Andrews hosted an online conversation in February that permitted Mr.
Hart to outline his approach to this special commission and allow viewers
to observe his first incisions in the marble slab that would soon be placed
in Poets' Corner. To revisit that poignant moment,
click here.
For background on a ceremony that would prove to be deeply moving, you'll
enjoy an April 11th article in The
Stage, where Sir Stanley Wells of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
discusses Sir John's
life and career and alludes to an October 2019 Gielgud
Theatre exchange that helped prepare the way for this spring's celebration.
Participants in the 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 Abbey'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. 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.
For background on the Abbey and its rich history, including vignettes that feature several of the key participants in our Poets' Corner proceedings, you'll enjoy Westminster Abbey: Behind Closed Doors, a five-hour documentary from Britain's Channel 5 that was being produced before, during, and shortly after our event and contains several references to it. Click on the following links to watch Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 of this fascinating series.
Attendees included Guardian critic Michael
Billington, who shared his reactions to the event on Twitter
and said that the evening "struck just the right note: a mix of admiration
for Gielgud and delight in his humour." Also on hand for the occasion were
such notables as actor and director
Keith Baxter, writer
Giles Brandreth, 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.
Among other things, the occasion provided vivid reminders that Sir John
will always be revered for his extraordinary career as an actor, director,
and producer. These achievements were extolled with particular eloquence
in the tributes 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,
among them 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.
In 1985 Sir John provided 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 published by Scribners.
A few years later he wrote illuminating forewords to Everyman Shakespeare
editions of Julius Caesar and
The Tempest. And in 1994
he graciously agreed to permit the Shakespeare Guild to establish a new
Award in his name.
For all they did to ensure the success of this Poets' Corner commemoration,
which was completely underwritten by the Guild, we're 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 support of Catherine Allen,
Eric Andrews, Sue Bellars, Letitia Chambers, Jan Denton, Jeffrey Hardy,
Lisa Andrews Hobart, and Gerry Ohrstrom.
A MEMORABLE 2021 SEASON OF ONLINE ATTRACTIONS
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 recent profile of Dame Judi 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 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.
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 this summer's 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 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.
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.
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.
"SHELTERING WITH SHAKESPEARE": OBSERVATIONS BY DAKIN MATTHEWS
One of the most imaginative, and deeply generous, of the many responses
to the disruptions caused by the Covid-19 pandemic was an extraordinary
series of online presentations by actor, director, playwright, and teacher
Dakin
Matthews, who came up with an enriching way to use the time he had available
when productions such as director producer Aaron Sorkin and director Bartlett
Sher's award-winning Broadway production of
To Kill a Mockingbird was forced to close. In association with
Theatre for a New Audience, Dakin recorded an extaordinary series of
guides to the playwright's unique artistry, with extensive coverage of topics
that would be of interest not only to theater professionals but to what
the producers of Shakespeare's First Folio referred to as "The Great Variety
of Readers." To view Dakin's introduction to this online resource, click
here. And to sample the insights that Dakin brings to an extraordinary variety of topics, click here and scroll down
the bottom of the page.
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.
HOW YOU CAN SUPPORT THE GUILD'S EFFORTS
By design most of the Guild's 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. If you wish to contribute to our activities,
either by enrolling or renewing as a Guild
member or by assisting us with a tax-exempt donation,
we'll be delighted, and we'll look forward to welcoming you to events such
as our April 23 festivities at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey.
