This is the first book of its kind to provide an in-depth examination of how the greatest playwright in the English language employed not only psychological brutality but also physical violence throughout his works. My Cue to Fight is the first book of its kind to provide an in-depth examination of how the greatest playwright in the English language employed not only psychological brutality but also physical violence throughout his works. Written ideally for theatrical stage directors, fight directors, intimacy consultants, and actors as a technical scene-by-scene breakdown in staging combat during production of these plays, this publication is also for Shakespeare enthusiasts who want to learn more about the blood, sweat, and viscera hidden just underneath the poetry. A writer utilizes violence, like song or dance, in moments where the story requires more than just words. But addressing how the violence will be staged tends either to be neglected or utterly gratuitous, both of which serve to separate the audience from the story and kill the whole venture. The answer rests in approaching violence the same way we do scenework. The plays of William Shakespeare seek to engage audiences with all of the characters’ blood, tears, sweat, and guts. These works are not flowery poems meant to be mumbled in a classroom, or histrionically declaimed in frilly costumes. There is nothing light and fluffy about 'rape' and 'murder’s rages', or 'carving' someone as a dish fit for the gods, or fighting till from one’s bones one’s 'flesh be hacked'. Making matters more complicated is the ambiguity and sometimes even complete lack of stage directions. Modern texts typically possess clear directions whenever violence is to occur in the action, but playscripts were quite different four centuries ago. Such denotations were both rare and inconsistent in Elizabethan and Jacobean printings. The potential violence we will examine is not appropriate for all productions or scene partners. We’re here to question and inspire rather than provide catch-all solutions. Actors, directors, fight directors, and intimacy consultants must work together to find the most effective way for their production to communicate the playwright’s story to the audience.

My Cue to Fight is the first book of its kind to provide an in-depth examination of how the greatest playwright in the English language employed not only psychological brutality but also physical violence throughout his works. Written ideally for theatrical stage directors, fight directors, intimacy consultants, and actors as a technical scene-by-scene breakdown in staging combat during production of these plays, this publication also is for Shakespeare enthusiasts who want to learn more about the blood, sweat, and viscera hidden just underneath the poetry. A writer utilises violence, like song or dance, in moments where the story requires more than just words. But addressing how the violence will be staged tends either to be neglected or utterly gratuitous, both of which serve to separate the audience from the story and kill the whole venture. The answer rests in approaching violence the same way we do scenework. The plays of William Shakespeare seek to engage audiences with all of the characters' blood, tears, sweat, and guts. These works are not flowery poems meant to be mumbled in a classroom, or histrionically declaimed in frilly costumes. There is nothing light and fluffy about 'rape' and 'murder's rages', or 'carving' someone as a dish fit for the gods, or fighting till from one's bones one's 'flesh be hacked'. Making matters more complicated is the ambiguity and sometimes even complete lack of stage directions. Modern texts typically possess clear directions whenever violence is to occur in the action but playscripts were quite different four centuries ago. Such denotations were both rare and inconsistent in Elizabethan and Jacobean printings. The potential violence we will examine is not appropriate for all productions or scene partners. We're here to question and inspire rather than provide catch-all solutions. Actors, directors, fight directors, and intimacy consultants must work together to find the most effective way for their production to communicate the playwright's story to an audience.

This study offers a historicization of the 2010s in British theatre with a focus on the representation of systemic violence, exploring productions that engage with concerns of protest, climate crisis, neoliberalism, racism and gender-based violence. It offers a range of case studies from established and emergent playwrights such as Caryl Churchill, Martin McDonagh, Anders Lustgarten, Lucy Kirkwood, Ella Hickson, Jasmine Lee-Jones, debbie tucker green, Zinnie Harris, and Travis Alabanza. Productions of their work in the 2010s are analysed through a framework of cultural theory, philosophy, and theatre and performance studies that offer insightful conceptions of violence and performativity. Central to this book is the belief that theatre has the ability to depict issues of systemic violence in thoughtful and valuable ways, drawing on the medium's specific relations between creatives, texts, spectatorship and audiences to mindfully engage participants in the most pressing societal and cultural concerns of their time.

"The Tragedy of Titus Andronicus" by William Shakespeare is a gripping and intense drama that explores themes of revenge, betrayal, and the destructive consequences of violence. Set in ancient Rome, the play follows the tragic downfall of the noble general Titus Andronicus and his family as they become embroiled in a cycle of vengeance and bloodshed. At the heart of the story is the brutal conflict between Titus Andronicus and Tamora, Queen of the Goths, whose sons are executed by Titus as retribution for their crimes. In retaliation, Tamora and her lover, Aaron the Moor, orchestrate a series of heinous acts of revenge against Titus and his family, plunging them into a spiral of madness and despair. As the body count rises and the atrocities escalate, Titus is consumed by grief and rage, leading to a climactic showdown that culminates in a shocking and tragic conclusion. Along the way, Shakespeare explores themes of honor, justice, and the nature of humanity, offering a searing indictment of the cycle of violence and the capacity for cruelty that lies within us all.

The playhouse and the role of playwright were relatively new phenomena during Shakespeares time, yet his audience spanned from royalty to the common man. This text shows what these audiences were finding out about the world through the eyes of the playwright Dora Thornton.

Reassess the relationship between Shakespeare's Hamlet, Othello, Macbeth, and the emerging genre of domestic tragedy by other early modern playwrights.

Offering the first sustained and comprehensive scholarly consideration of the dramatic potential of the blazon, this volume complicates what has become a standard reading of the Petrarchan convention of dismembering the beloved through poetic description. At the same time, it contributes to a growing understanding of the relationship between the material conditions of theater and interpretations of plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. The chapters in this collection are organized into five thematic parts emphasizing the conventions of theater that compel us to consider bodies as both literally present and figuratively represented through languge. The first part addresses the dramatic blazon as used within the conventions of courtly love. Examining the classical roots of the Petrarchan blazon, the next part explores the violent eroticism of a poetic technique rooted in Ovidian notions of metamorphosis. With similar attention paid to brutality, the third part analyzes the representation of blazonic dismemberment on stage and screen. Figurative battles become real in the fourth part, which addresses the frequent blazons surfacing in historical and political plays. The final part moves to the role of audience, analyzing the role of the observer in containing the identity of the blazoned woman as well as her attempts to resist becoming an objectified spectacle.

Bringing Shakespeare to the Sunshine State, this book gathers together a talented group of teachers, choreographers, directors, set designers, musicians, costumers, actors, and artists to discuss how they have adapted the bard's monologues in Miami, assassinated Julius Caesar on the steps of Tallahassee's Capitol, trained students to duel in Florida's Panhandle, placed Shylock on trial in Orlando, and transformed Gainesville into Puck's magical forest. This guide for teachers and lovers of literature and theater is an original collection of essays exploring the idea that Shakespeare's plays are best approached playfully through performance. Based on their wide-ranging experience as theater professionals and teachers in Florida, New York, London, and Stratford, the authors celebrate Shakespeare's continuing appeal to our complex, diverse culture. The essays include reflections on acting by the Royal Shakespeare Company's longest-serving member. And there's practical advice on acting; directing; staging fights; designing costumes; and integrating music, dance, masks, and puppets into performances from teachers and others who have refined their methods by performing Shakespeare in the classroom.

This book looks at the staging and performance of normality in early modern drama. Analysing conventions and rules, habitual practices, common things and objects, and mundane sights and experiences, this volume foregrounds a staged normality that has been heretofore unseen, ignored, or taken for granted. It draws together leading and emerging scholars of early modern theatre and culture to debate the meaning of normality in an early modern context and to discuss how it might transfer to the stage. In doing so, these original critical essays unsettle and challenge scholarly assumptions about how normality is represented in the performance space. The volume, which responds to studies of the everyday and the material turn in cultural history, as well as to broader philosophical engagements with the idea of normality and its opposites, brings to light the essential role that normality plays in the composition and performance of early modern drama. This book was preceded by a companion collection, Staged Transgression in Shakespeare's England, published in 2013: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137349354

Staging History unites essays by nine specialists in the field of late medieval and early Renaissance drama. Their focus is on English, Dutch and Humanist German drama, as well as on a modern Swiss adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V.