Shakespeare Conference And Festivities In Concord MA
MUCH ADO ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
FRI. JULY 31 – SUN. AUGUST 2, 2009
CONCORD LIBRARY & MASONIC HALL, CONCORD, MA
"The man that has no music in himself,
Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,
Is fit for treason, stratagems, and spoils,
The motions of his spirit are dull as night,
And his affections dark as Erebus:
Let no such man be trusted: mark the music.”
-Lorenzo, The Merchant of Venice
FRIDAY EVENING:
“… water cools not love.”
-Sonnet 154
7:00 – 9:00: Opening Presentations & Conversation:
Margaret’s Wars
Lida McGirr will present "Margaret’s Wars," a brief study covering successive stages of Margaret’s career throughout the three Henry VI’s and Richard III as she takes on each of the archetypal roles Jung later described for the life cycle of a woman as virgin, wife, mother, wise old woman. Scenes from each of the scripts will be read and/or acted out, to chronicle these changes: i. Margaret & Suffolk, ii. a scene with Henry and Margaret, iii. scene where her son is killed, iv. either the prophecy scene in Richard III or the scene with Margaret, Elizabeth and the Duchess towards the end of Richard III.
SATURDAY MORNING:
"Absent thee from felicity awhile/And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain/To tell my story"
-Hamlet - 5.2: 350
9:00 –10:30: Presentation & Conversation:
An Uncommon Noble Tells All:
Oxord’s Seventeenth Earl talks with Lady Mary (Sydney) Wroth in 1604 about his life and what he feared would be forgotten about himself, his queen, his family, his writings and his times.
Joe Eldredge: Architect, Author, Editor, Critic, Poet
10:30 – 11:00: Break
11:00-12:30: Presentation & Conversation:
“Who Are You?”
Over the years the traditional identification of “William Shakespeare” with a gentleman from Stratford-upon-Avon has been extensively questioned. Often the work draws upon intensely personal details of the writer and those about him, a potential source of embarrassment if the writer’s identity were revealed. Such could well be the case for the most prominent alternate identity of “William Shakespeare” – Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford.
Richard Desper: retired scientist and independent scholar of Shakespeare authorship.
12:30 – 2:30: Lunch in Concord
SATURDAY AFTERNOON
“Sweets to the Sweet.”
-Hamlet Act V, Scene 1
2:30 – 4:00: Presentation & Conversation:
"Shakespeare’s Women: Why Do They Have to Die?"
In Hamlet, King Lear and Othello we witness the moving, tragic deaths of Ophelia, Cordelia, and Desdemona. Why do these young women have to die and the heroes outlive them in each play? Is there an inspirational archetype that can increase our understanding of these events?
Robert Horner: (Yale B.A.) has taught high school English and theatre for many years. Lives in the City of Brotherly Love and lectures on American literature and esoteric studies, as well as the work of the Bard.
4:00-4:30: Break
4:30-6:00:
"Shake-speare’s Treason"
New York actor-writer Hank Whittemore will present "Shake-speare’s Treason," an Oxfordian interpretation of the Sonnets. His story is that the sonnets, those exquisite little mysteries, have finally fallen into place when read m as being written by Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, to Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton, and Queen Elizabeth.
His production (with Ted Story, a New York writer-director) argues that Oxford not only wrote the plays of Shakespeare, a claim most literary experts reject, but that Southampton is the "fair youth" and Elizabeth the "dark lady" of the sonnets, and Southampton de Vere’s son by Elizabeth. Which is why the sonnets were suppressed when they were published in 1609. He has also written "The Monument", a 900 page analysis of the Sonnets and their place in Elizabethan history.
6:00-8:00: Dinner
SATURDAY EVENING
"All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players"
Jaques - As You Like It
8:00 into the Wee Hours: Evening Fest
Music, Merriment, Verse, Dance & Good Spirits
Friends and lovers of Shakespeare are invited step up and present their favorite sonnets, speeches, melodies, scenes from the plays, and related gems in celebration of the 400th anniversary of blessed bard’s Genius.
SUNDAY MORNING:
"The purest treasure mortal times afford, is spotless reputation: That away, Men are but loam and painted clay."
-Thomas Mowbray, Richard II
9:00 – 10:30: Presentation & Conversation
Richard II: The Art and the Politics
Richard II gives us an opportunity to experience Shakespeare’s awareness of what is at work in political intrigue in a form that can only compel awe at the play’s combination of insight into humanity and dramatic and poetic mastery. Characters act upon suspicions or impulses aroused by what has been said and done by other characters in ways that, with no clear or intentional villain in sight, bear massive historical consequences for the destiny of the English people.
Charles Boyle: author, actor, and director
John Stirling Walker: poet and librettist
10:30 – 11:00: Break
11:00 – 12:30: Presentation & Conversation:
“Shakespeare/DeVere: The Monetary Backdrop”
The virtually unrecognized thread of monetary history and the economic ferment of the Elizabethan era provide a backdrop against which the life and works of the celebrated English bard (Edward DeVere?) were played out. The dramas sound with a moral timbre that is not merely behavioral, legal, or economically self-interested, but allegorical; a temporal tale of the Gods. Is this the elixir they hold for this “post-modern” era, soon to metamorphose (dare I “prophesy”) into a post-commercial age?
Richard Kotlarz: inquirer of the Economic/Social Order
12:30 - 2:30: Lunch in Concord
SUNDAY AFTERNOON
"We are such stuff as dreams are made on/ and our little life is rounded with a sleep"
-Prospero, The Tempest
2:30 – 5:00: Presentations, Performances & Conversation:
Three Shakespeare Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams.
David Conte asserts that Ralph Vaughan Williams’s "Three Shakespeare Songs" represent a supreme achievement in the repertoire of twentieth-century choral composition. More-over, the songs brilliantly fulfill the original pedagogical purpose: provide a challenging and grateful work for choral singers, using texts of the highest literary and spiritual quality. David Conte will illuminate how the unique character, color and structure of Shakespeare’s language inform one composer’s musical choices regarding melody, harmony, rhythm and meter, and form as expressed in these songs.
David Conte: Professor of Composition, San Francisco Conservatory of Music, & Award-Winning Composer. David’s recent performances and commissions include: a piece composed from President Obama’s victory speech and performed at the inauguration; “Homecoming” in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., performed by Chanticleer at the Metropolitan Museum in New York City; and “Lincoln” commissioned for Concord’s Bicentennial Celebration of Lincoln’s birth.
Shakespeare in a Tarnhelm.
The “tarnhelm” was the golden helmet in Wagner’s Ring Cycle that allowed its wearer to assume any form or even become invisible; so it has been for several centuries with composers donning an interpretive tarnhelm to twist some of the great works of Shakespeare to assume a new form – along the way, some were so changed as to become nearly invisible. Brian Luedloff explores the evolution of Shakespeare’s work through the operatic form, including masterworks and rarely-performed and unknown works. Is the Shakespearean text illuminated or obscured by the element of song? How do character arcs differ in the transition to the operatic form? Discussion will include amusing anecdotes of hits and misses throughout the centuries as composers try their hand at adapting the work of the Bard of Avon.
Brian Luedloff: Assistant Professor of Music and Director of Opera Theatre for the University of Northern Colorado. He has directed operas across the country and served on the staging staff of San Francisco Opera, Lyric Opera of Chicago and Houston Grand Opera. He received his MFA in Directing from Boston University where he held a Directing Fellowship in the School of Theatre Arts and taught and directed in the Opera Institute."
ONE AND ALL ARE WELCOME
Contributions, as your fortunes allow, are invited to cover our costs, as we look ahead to the “Third Annual Concord Shakespeare Conference-Festival.”
For further information visit: www.concordshakespeare.com
hUMILITY pRESS
West Tisbury MA
May 2009