Everyone has some form of relationship with Shakespeare. But those good and bad experiences from school or live performances can become burdens when faced with dense blank verse and light stage directions. The Scaffold Shakespeare Company is built upon acknowledging these burdens and putting them aside to explore the work as though for the first time. In this exciting series of workshops, they have created an open and inclusive space for professional theatre- makers to explore Shakespeare’s plays.

This spring’s season Warring Love will have play-specific workshops for Shakespearean novices and experts focussing on The Comedy of Errors, Henry IV Part II, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Henry V and Romeo and Juliet. These workshops were first begun by Scaffold Shakespeare to allow professional theatre-makers – whether actors, directors, designers or dramaturgs - to ask the basic questions or obsess over the tiniest details of Shakespeare plays, making them accessible to everyone who wants to understand them.

Begun more than seven years ago, the Scaffold Shakespeare Company workshops are led by the Artistic Directors Annabelle Brown, Tobias Deacon, Bryn Holding and Tom Latter. With experience across acting, directing and composing, all four have worked in new and classical theatre for West-End, fringe, universities, drama schools and schools, for companies including Royal Shakespeare Company, Hampton Court Palace, Theatre Royal Bath, Southwark Playhouse, Theatre503, Young Shakespeare Company, Bristol Shakespeare Festival, Classical Roadshow, Harrow School, New Vic, TheatreLab, Sell A Door, Principal and venues across the UK and internationally.

The workshops are run to allow participants to manage their day according to their interests and to manage their own involvement. In this way, the day begins with a group-reading but the parts are cast by volunteering and are open to all regardless of age, gender or ethnicity. The deeper analysis of the text begins after lunch and pursues the aspects of the text which excite curiosity or invites further interrogation. The workshops are built around the people who take part in them; they are a unique and unrepeatable experience every time.

Artistic Director and workshop leader, Tom Latter comments, These workshops celebrate the fact that Shakespeare’s plays are full of variety and open to interpretation. They are open and accessible to theatre-makers of any experience level, because the multiple perspectives this gives to his plays really helps us question what they can mean for us now. It is an inclusive, supportive space where theatre-makers can be bold and unburdened by the weight of Shakespearean History.

The Comedy of Errors, Sunday 22 April, 10.30am – 6pm Henry IV Part II, Sunday 13 May, 10.30am – 6pm Love’s Labour’s Lost, Sunday 27 May, 10.30am – 6pm Henry V, Sunday 10 June, 10.30am – 6pm
Romeo and Juliet, Sunday 24 June, 10.30am – 6pm @ScaffoldShakesp

www.scaffoldshakespeare.co.uk

Jerwood Space, 171 Union Street, London, SE1 0LN

The nearest underground stations are Borough (on the Bank branch of the Northern line) or Southwark (Jubilee line). The nearest train station is London Bridge.

Tickets are available priced £12 per workshop or £10 each for four or more workshops. Available from https://www.scaffoldshakespeare.co.uk/workshops/.

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