All entries for Monday 16 June 2008

Coming Up

It's been a calm couple of weeks (despite the Middleton binge) on the theatregoing front, but I'll be making up for this with quite a bit of activity in the next couple of weeks, both theatrical and academic.

This week starts calmly but promisingly, with Warwick University Drama Society's fascinating-sounding production of Macbeth on Wednesday night. I'm then off to the British Graduate Shakespeare Conferencein Stratford for three days where I'll be indulging my academic side. I was originally going to be presenting a paper on the RSC Histories Cycle, but time and other committments meant I had to withdraw. I'm still looking forward to auditing though, there are some very interesting papers and speakers this year. Most of the conference will be taking the opportunity to catch the RSC's The Taming of the Shrew, but I'm instead going to be surprisingly untheatrical and see Thea Gilmore at Cox's Yard.

Back to the Shakespeare, next week sees the start of the Warwick Student Arts Festival at the University of Warwick. At the time of writing the programme isn't available, but by all accounts there should be a fantastic range of stuff. I'll hopefully make it to an open-air The Tempest on Monday and a late night promenade production of A Midsummer Night's Dream on Tuesday - which is, of course, Midsummer's Eve.

If all goes well, I'll be seeing three Dreams in two days. On Tuesday I'm in London for a lecture at the London Forum for Authorship Studies that's relevant to my PhD, and with a following wind I'm hoping to catch the Globe's matinee of their well-received Dream beforehand. Having dashed back up to Warwick for the student production, I'm then seeing Footsbarn's carnivalesque production the next day. I suppose it's that time of year, but apologies in advance if I'm somewhat incoherent about what happened in each one.....

July should be quiet - as I'm in the US for half of the month, I've only got one UK trip planned which is to the Young Rep's Henry VI Part III: The Chaos, a very rare stand-alone production of a single part of the trilogy. However, I've got plenty of things to book for: as well as the RSC's new Tempest, there are some recently-announced productions I'm particularly looking forward to booking for:

• Nos do Morro bringing their Two Gentlemen of Verona to the Barbican (it premiering in 2006 at the Courtyard).
• Complicite returning to the Barbican with the apparently-excellent A Disappearing Number which I missed first time around.
• Lastly at the Barbican, the Mark Morris Dance Group and London Symphony Orchestra joining forces on what sounds like a spectacular variant on Romeo and Juliet.
• The Everyman's King Lear, directed by Rupert Goold and with Pete Postlethwaite in the title role.

All for now!

Peter Kirwan : 16 Jun 2008 16:36 |  Tags: Thoughts |  Comments (1) |  Close comments |  Report a problem