Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company’s Othello Retold

To Manchester to give a Shakespeare workshop for Akala’s Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company and BBC Blast’s Othello Retold project…

Following on…

Dear followers of Toast

I’m pleased to let you know Toast has become a great success! The paperback published in June and reprinted in September, the reviews glow, and there’s still one more lit-fest talk coming up – the Wells Festival of Literature on October 22nd!

And while I’m still running around giving workshops and schools talks, I’ll be blogging a little less frequently on this site for the time being, as:

- I’m producing the second show for my theatre company shiningman. The new play Gilbert is Dead by Robin French will be playing at one of London’s last Victorian music halls, Hoxton Hall, 4th-29th November.

Follow the rehearsals, book – and win! – tickets, at www.gilbertisdead.co.uk and http://twitter.com/Gilbert_Shirley

- I’ve just finished acting in a short film, Notes directed by James Sharpe, and I’ll be acting in a play later in December.

More details of both will be at my main site, www.bencrystal.com…

News of future Toast activity – and there looks to be plenty coming -including an India tour, a full Shakespeare production, and a possible TV programme – will all be posted here!

Yours

Ben

UCLA Sonnet Workshop

Last week I gave a bunch of visiting UCLA students a talk on the sonnets.

One of them, a very kind Natalie de Luna, wrote up the talk:

Crystal reminded us to keep in mind the brilliance of Shakes where every punctuation, every caesura, every capitalization is there for a reason. Every imperfect iambic pentameter line is meant to show the character’s distraught brokenness.

He had us each perform the sonnets, many people took the creative notch up a bit as they turned the sonnets into a funky rap, or brought it down to a mellow tone, with doubled voices emphasizing capitalized letters and the melancholy of Sonnet 29.

And here’s Kelsey Sharpe’s report of the session, with a couple of videos:

As Crystal’s great desire is for people to perform, rather than just read, Shakespeare, he told us that he wanted every one of our 60-odd members to say at least one line before leaving. After a massive circle-reading of Sonnet 29, he asked us to come up in our groups and perform it for the rest of the room. One brave volunteer then read the entire sonnet to the class, and the session ended with Crystal stressing once more the need for everybody to experience performing Shakespeare — to “get the words off of the page and into [our] mouths.”

Swanwick Writer’s Summer School

Off to speak to the good people flexing their nibs at the Writer’s Summer School in Swanwick…

Last Toast talk until the Wells Festival of Literature in October!

Camp Bestival, midday, Saturday 25th July

Heading to Lulworth Castle in Dorset this Saturday, for spell at Camp Bestival!

I’ll be speaking for about half an hour from midday in the Bookworm Tent on the Magic Meadow.

More details can be found at the Camp Bestival website…

Ways with Words Festival, Dartington – Weds 15th July 7.30pm

Looking forward to returning to Dartington Hall in Devon this week, as part of the Ways With Words Festival of Words and Ideas sponsored by The Daily Telegraph, to give a talk on Shakespeare and all things Toast.

I’ll be speaking in the Hall this Weds at 7.30pm, and signing books afterwards.

Come one, come all – further details can be found on the festival’s site…

“A must-have for all Shakespeare fans” — Library Thing

A review of Toast just in, www.librarything.com’s Mark O’Neill says:

Sprinked with bits of Shakespeare’s plays and sonnets so you can put the theory into practise, this is a must-have for all Shakespeare fans.

Click here to read the review in full…

Competition ends tomorrow!

The Cafédirect competition to WIN TICKETS to see a performance at Shakespeare’s Globe AND a signed copy of Shakespeare on Toast ends tomorrow (Tues 30th) at midday!

Click here to find details on how to enter…

Show & Tell, tonight 7pm, at The School of Life

I’ll be bringing one of my very favourite things to Show & Tell tonight at The School of Life, hosted by the very wonderful Damian Barr. Also with Laura Lockington and David Nicholls…

Come see what we’ll bring. Details here…

BBC Radio 3 – Listen to the interview here…

The interview clip from last week’s The Verb on BBC Radio 3, where I talked in & about Original Pronunciation – Shakespeare’s accent – with Ian McMillan is now up.

Listen here…!