This remarkable edition features a newly edited text of Much Ado About Nothing based on the latest scholarship, along with detailed essays, commentary and photos. On the integrated audio CD, narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi, you can hear the play through multiple productions from different eras, and experience different actors' interpretations of the characters.
Hear 26 great performances including:
--Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Saskia Reeves, Pauline Jameson, and Maureen Fitzgerald as Beatrice
--Sir John Gielgud, Samuel West, Richard Johnson, and John Horton as Benedick
--Bonus audio discussion of a voice coach's perspective on "Speaking Shakespeare" with Andrew Wade, voice consultant for Shakespeare in Love
See photographs from notable productions:
--Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film
--Kristen Johnson, Jimmy Smits, David Hyde Pierce at the Joseph Papp Public Theater
--Harriet Walter, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, Janet Suzman at the Royal Shakespeare Company
--Costume renderings from the 1958 production at the Shakespeare Memorial Theate
Read essays and commentary with insights from:
--Courtney Lehmann, author of Shakespeare Remains: Theater to Film, Early Modern to Postmodern, on Kenneth Branagh's 1993 film
--Douglas Lanier, editor of Shakespeare and Modern Popular Culture on Much Ado About Nothing as inspiration for contemporary media
--Text editor Jeffrey Kahan, series editor of Shakespeare Millennium, on productions of Much Ado About Nothing throughout history
Readers will also learn about contemporary and film performances, explore the play from a modern cast's point of view, and uncover the history of Shakespeare's world with additional essays by noted experts.
Peter Holland is the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Notre Dame. One of the central figures in performance-oriented Shakespeare criticism, he has also edited many Shakespeare plays, including A Midsummer Night's Dream for the Oxford Shakespeare series.
David Bevington is the Phyllis Fay Horton Distinguished Service Professor in the Humanities at the University of Chicago. A renowned text scholar, he has edited several Shakespeare editions including the Bantam Shakespeare in individual paperback volumes, The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Longman, 2003), and Troilus and Cressida (Arden, 1998). He teaches courses in Shakespeare, renaissance drama and medieval drama.
Dominique Raccah is founder, president, and publisher of Sourcebooks, a leading independent publisher outside of Chicago. Today Sourcebooks publishes nonfiction, fiction, and poetry. She is the series editor of Poetry Speaks and the Sourcebooks Shakespeare.
Marie Macaisa is a student and long-time fan of Shakespeare's works, leaving her previous career in high-tech to become the series editor of the Sourcebooks Shakespeare. She contributes the Cast Speaks essays for all volumes, writes the script and produces the accompanying audio, and is at work on the upcoming titles in the series.
Terri Bourus is an assistant professor of English at Indiana University Kokomo where she teaches Shakespeare and Renaissance Drama. She received her PhD in 2000 from Northern Illinois University. Her numerous publications include: "Working as a Director: An Interview with Aaron Posner" in Shakespeare Bulletin, 2003; "The First Quarto of Hamlet in Film: The Revenge-Tragedies of Nicol Williamson and Mel Gibson" in EnterText, 2001; Shakespeare's 'Hamlet': Complete Study Edition, edited by Sidney Lamb, 2000; and the upcoming text "Enter Hamlet [Reading on a book]: Shakespeare's Other Audience and the Publication of the Hamlet Quartos" in Shakespeare's Book, edited by Richard Wilson, 2006.
