Time: 1:30-3:00 pm, April 17, 2018
Venue:东五102(青荷)
Speaker: Clayton Stromberger
Abstract:William Shakespeare, such an iconic figure around the whole globe, was a player first. When he began writing his own plays, he used that player’s instinct to write juicy roles for each of his friends. When we play him, we connect in a direct way with the player’s spirit that first animated these imaginary worlds.Through playing out the plays, we can gain new and valuable insights into the heart of Shakespeare’s theatrical genius. His works go from being two-dimensional objects, imagined in a solitary theater of the reader’s mind, to being three-dimensional lived experiences, created in collaboration with others and shared in real time. This approach can offer an endless source of discovery.
Bio: Clayton Stromberger (M.A. 2014) has worked with students of all ages on the performance study of Shakespeare since 1986, currently for the Shakespeare at Winedale program in the Department of English at the University of Texas at Austin. He has directed and acted in many productions, including Shakespeare’s Measure for Measureand Troilus and Cressida. He is working on a monograph to be published in 2020 by ARC Humanities Press in the U.K. as part of its new “Recreational Shakespeare” series, titled Shakespeare, Schoolchildren, and the Invitation to Play.