Shakespeare's Advice to the Players - Softcover

Hall, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1559362340 ISBN 13: 9781559362344

Publisher: Theatre Communications Group, 2003

Synopsis

Shakespeare’s text is packed with clues that help the reader to hear and the performer to act any speech. He also tells the actor when to go fast and when to go slow and when to accent a particular word.

This book sets out to make going to Shakespeare performances or acting in them a richer experience, and it should have a wide appeal to both actors and audiences.

It also celebrates Sir Peter Hall’s fifty years as a director of Shakespeare; from his early days at Cambridge, through founding the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford on Avon in the early ’60s, and later to his fifteen years as the director of the Royal National Theatre of Great Britain. Throughout these years, Peter Hall worked with the greatest Shakespearean actors of our generation including Laurence Olivier, John Gielgud, Edith Evans, Ralph Richardson, Peggy Ashcroft, Charles Laughton and in later years Judi Dench, Anthony Hopkins, Ian Holm, David Warner, and many others. Through this great line flows a tradition of speaking and understanding Shakespeare that remains as relevant and important today. And it is Hall’s experience of working and learning with these and many other actors over the years that underpins the core of this book.

Sir Peter Hall is one of the major figures in theatre today. To date he has directed over two hundred productions, including the world premiere in English of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot, and the premieres of most of Harold Pinter’s plays. His diary and autobiography are published by Oberon Books.

About this title

About the Author

Sir Peter Hall is one of the greatest theatre, film and opera directors of our time. At the age of 29 he founded the Royal Shakespeare Company. In 1973 he became Director of the National Theatre and opened the new theatres on the South Bank. He later founded the Peter Hall Company, producing many West End and Broadway successes. He has directed at many international opera houses, including Glyndebourne, the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the Metropolitan Opera and Bayreuth. To date he has directed over two hundred productions, including the world premiere in English of Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, and the premieres of most of Harold Pinter's plays.

Review

'Acting students and young professionals will flock to learn from him - passionate, entertaining - Indisputably wise and true - Wonderfully illuminating' Telegraph 'As fascinating to readers as it is to actors' Independent 'This is the most fabulously hybrid book - part actor's handbook, part memoir - what is most inspiring is Hall's conviction that form can be as exciting as feeling/ Acting in this way is more than just listening to Shakespeare - it is responding to Shakespeare's linear needs' Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: Theatre Communications Group
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1559362340
• ISBN 13: 9781559362344
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 176