I hate Shakespeare

Not really, but the tradition of producing Macbeth every season is as artistically redundant as cutting and pasting press releases in an attempt to keep the numbers up on a cultural blog. So here's a release about a new national project... 

The Theatre Archive Project (TAP) – a collaboration between De Montfort University (DMU) and the British Library (BL) – brings together a vivid collection of reminiscences about British theatre from 1945 to 1968 and has captured more than 300 interviews in 234 hours of oral history recording.

Led by DMU’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Dominic Shellard, and the BL’s head of English and Drama, Jamie Andrews, the project has been running for ten years.

The archive holds interviews with one of the greatest actors of the 20^th century, Laurence Olivier, which were given to the project, as well as Ian Richardson, star of the original BBC series House of Cardswhich has recently been adapted into an award-winning TV series in the US.

To mark the 400^th anniversary of Shakespeare’s death in April 2016, the project will now also begin to capture interviews with cast and crew, theatre workers, audience members, scholars and critics who have experiences of Shakespearean productions from 1945 to the present.

This new direction will be unveiled at the TAP’s annual celebration at the BL this week (25 Oct) which is exploring repertory (rep) and ensemble theatre.

[Rep being when a theatre company present different plays every week and ensemble, when a group of theatre artists work together for many years on different pieces.]

Often considered to be older ways of working, these systems have been rejuvenated with The Royal Court Theatre recently reviving the weekly rep method and a number of other theatres across the country reinvigorating the idea of ensemble companies.

Speakers at the BL event this week will be leading UK director Laurence Boswell, actors Laura Elphinstone and Richard Franklin, and DMU’s Vice-Chancellor Professor Dominic Shellard. The event will be chaired by Guardian theatre critic Lyn Gardner.

During the event the panellists will discuss whether these approaches to theatre-making still have a future in the UK theatre scene.

Professor Shellard said: “DMU’s collaboration with the British Library continues to evolve and our new focus on Shakespeare marks an interesting and dynamic new direction for TAP.

“In 2016 the British Library will be unveiling a new Shakespeare exhibition and we hope that some of the oral history that we can gather during the next few years will be able to support its curation.”

Zoë Wilcox, Curator of Modern Literary and Theatrical Manuscripts at the BL, said: “This event at the British Library will use some of the fascinating personal testimonies gathered by the Theatre Archive Project over the last ten years to spark debate about theatre practice today.

“We are looking forward to adding further interviews to our freely accessible online collection in future. If you think you may have a story to tell about Shakespeare in performance, we’d like to hear from you.”

The event will take place at the BL on Friday 25 October, 6:30-8.00pm, followed by a wine reception.