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    Original Pronunciation // Sam Wanamaker Playhouse, Shakespeare’s Globe // July 2014

    Back from a Passion in Practice workshop and Shakespeare on Toast Schools Workshops and a Springboard Shakespeare book tour around the USA. Coached a Company in their Original Pronunciation in Houston, worked with the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, colleges in northern and central California, members of the Bristol Faire Ensemble in Chicago, visited the Folger Library in DC, gave a talk and a workshop at the Blackfriars Theatre in Staunton, VA, and spent 10 days in NYC, running workshops and giving talks in celebration of our Bard’s 450th.

    A terrific month.

    Back to the UK, to finish work on the new Oxford Illustrated Dictionary of Shakespeare for OUP that lands April 2015, that I’m co-writing with my father, and a book on accents for Macmillan called You Say Potato, that he’s writing with me, which will land October 2014.

    Meanwhile, am getting ready to direct The Winter’s Tale in June, and preparing the Original Pronunciation events for the Shakespeare’s Globe this July.

    My Shakespeare Ensemble, Dad and I will be presenting three events in the new Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. An evening of Prose and Poetry on July 10th, an evening of Songs and Sonnets on July 17th, to include new scorings of Shakespeare’s songs composed by Sam Amidon, played live by The Askew Sisters, ending with a cue-script rehearsed, staged reading by candle-light of Macbeth on July 20th – all to be heard in the recreation of the accent Shakespeare’s Company spoke in.

    You can hear the accent here: Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation

    Houston, San Francisco, NYC, DC, Virginia – April Tour

    Here below, details of my book-talk & workshop tour around the USA

    April 2014

    Houston
    4th-11th, University of Houston Downtown, Original Pronunciation (Workshop)
    10th, Shakespeare on Toast, Annunciation Orthodox School, 1pm
    San Francisco
    14th, Pacific Union College, Shakespeare’s Verse (Workshop)
    17th, Santa Clara University, Shakespeare’s Verse (Workshop), 2pm
    17th, San Francisco Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare’s Verse (Workshop), 7pm
    Chicago
    18th-19th, Shakespeare’s Ensemble (Workshop)
    NYC
    23rd, NYPL, Shakespeare on Toast 1.15pm
    25th & 28th, Washington DC
    Virginia
    26th-27th, Original Practices talks and workshops, Blackfriars Playhouse, American Shakespeare Centre
    NYC
    28th, Shakespeare’s Verse (Open Workshop)
    29th, Sayville School, Long Island
    30th, Emma Willard School, Troy
    1st May, Shakespeare’s Verse (Open Workshop)

    Time Magazine – 20/9/13

    Time Magazine interviewed me last week about Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation. Here’s a link to the piece:

    Ben Crystal – Time Magazine

    The Passion in Practice Workshop last weekend went terrific well. Do head to Passion in Practice Cinematography to see the video footage.

    Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation – Live! – The British Library – May 4th, 6.30pm

    First, a very happy 448th birthday to Will… Your work never ceases to amaze. Well done. Take the rest of the day off.

    Now! This coming Star Wars Day, I’ll be giving a talk at the British Library based on the CD of Shakespeare sonnets, speeches and scenes I curated for the BL.

    Together with a fab line-up of actors, we’ll intercut the blah-blah-blah by performing speeches & scenes from Shakespeare in Original Pronunciation. Some will be from the CD, some won’t have been heard in OP for over 400 years… Come one, come all…!

    For details of the event, and to purchase tickets, click here

    How did Shakespeare sound to the audiences of the day?

    Ben Crystal, together with actors from the company formed for the new British Library Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation CD, offer us a rare chance to hear new meanings uncovered, new jokes revealed and poetic effects enhanced.

     

    ‘Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation’ is currently available on CD & to Download here.

    You can have a sneak preview to Sonnet 116, Macbeth, Romeo & Juliet here

     

    Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation – CD Available Now

    The first ever CD of Shakespeare sonnets, speeches and scenes that I curated for the British Library launched yesterday. Click here for the full press release.

    It’s now available to buy, and the Live event will take place on May 4th, 2012, at the British Library.

    The Telegraph ran a feature on it with some extracts to listen to, as did the New Statesman, and Mark Lawson interviewed me on BBC Radio 4’s Frontrow last night (available to download as a podcast, dated 14th March 2012).

    Enjoy!

    Hamlet – Year of the Prince

    Photos of the Contemporary World Premiere of Hamlet in the Original Pronunciation can now be seen here:
    www.YearOfThePrince.com

     

    Early 2012 – British Library CD, Venus & Adonis, Arden Shakespeare…

    Back from Nevada & playing the lead in the Contemporary World Premiere of Hamlet in Original Pronunciation.

    I’m about to finish curating a CD of extracts of Shakespeare in OP for the British Library, the first of its kind, which will be out in February 2012 on CD & download. See here for more details: Shakespeare’s Original Pronunciation

    And now, after 7 months of acting, three months of (mostly) writing…

    I’m currently adapting Shakespeare’s long poem Venus & Adonis for the Engage Programme out of Bath Theatre Royal, Bath Lit Festival 2012, & Roughhouse Theatre, which will be playing early March 2012.

    And I’m about to write a new series of books called Springboard Shakespeare for Arden Shakespeare, coming out September 2012

    Probably slightly more regular updates found via my Twitter feed.

    Wishing each & all an adventurous new year…

    “Now is the Winter of our discontent…” — in Original Pronunciation

    The Richard III Quarto, at the British Library Evolving English Exhibition, 13 November 2010 -- 3rd April 2011

    I was asked to record the opening speech of Richard 3 for the British Library’s Evolving English Exhibition. Knowing the listener would be using headphones while reading the original Quarto edition, I found myself whispering the speech into the microphone. Have a listen and get inside Richard’s head… The Folio text is below.

    Now is the Winter… in Original Pronunciation

    Enter Richard Duke of Gloster, solus.

    Now is the Winter of our Discontent,
    Made glorious Summer by this Son of Yorke:
    And all the clouds that lowr’d vpon our house
    In the deepe bosome of the Ocean buried.
    Now are our browes bound with Victorious Wreathes,
    Our bruised armes hung vp for Monuments;
    Our sterne Alarums chang’d to merry Meetings;
    Our dreadfull Marches, to delightfull Measures.
    Grim-visag’d Warre, hath smooth’d his wrinkled Front:
    And now, in stead of mounting Barbed Steeds,
    To fright the Soules of fearfull Aduersaries,
    He capers nimbly in a Ladies Chamber,
    To the lasciuious pleasing of a Lute.*
    But I, that am not shap’d for sportiue trickes,
    Nor made to court an amorous Looking-glasse:
    I, that am Rudely stampt, and want loues Maiesty,
    To strut before a wonton ambling Nymph:
    I, that am curtail’d of this faire Proportion,
    Cheated of Feature by dissembling Nature,**
    Deform’d, vn-finish’d, sent before my time
    Into this breathing World, scarse halfe made vp,
    And that so lamely and vnfashionable,
    That dogges barke at me, as I halt by them.
    Why I (in this weake piping time of Peace)
    Haue no delight to passe away the time,
    Vnlesse to see my Shadow in the Sunne,
    And descant on mine owne Deformity.

    *In the Quarto text the word is Love, not Lute
    **I think my favourite bit is the way the rhythm begins to canter here…

    Video clips from the Poland Talks…

    From the series of talks I gave last week for Macmillan Poland

    Discussing the difference between performing Shakespeare in RP vs OP (Shakespeare’s accent); then performing Sonnet 116 in RP, and OP; and then reading from the opening chapter of Toast, Schwarzengger’s Hamlet



    OP at Shakespeare’s Globe for OU

    Spent a fine morning being filmed running around the Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre with Dad: he explaining the origins of the Original Pronunciation experiments, me acting some examples.

    Performed excerpts from Henry V, Romeo & Juliet, As You Like It, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and all of Sonnet 116 – which sounds SO different in Shakespeare’s accent – then were interviewed about our work together.

    All for an Open University film. Lovely to work with Dad again. Lovely to be back in that terrific space.

    Now to Poland to give a series of Shakespeare talks, Ash Cloud permitting… (has it really been capitalised?)