Rehearsing the text
Using a scene from Twelfth Night, this program helps us search through the text for Shakespeare's clues to character, language, and staging; we see how richly a careful reading of Shakespeare is repaid. The program analyzes text and subtext, how the...
Speaking Shakespearean verse
Members of the Royal Shakespeare Company discuss approaches to the problem of speaking verse in drama and demonstrate how the RSC works on a text in rehearsal. Taking part are actors Ian McKellen, Alan Howard, Jane Lapotaire, Michael Pennington, Dav...
Preparing to perform Shakespeare
Members of the Royal Shakespeare Company present a workshop before a television studio audience to demonstrate how they rehearse and learn to perform Shakespeare's plays. In this masterclass on Shakespeare, director John Barton works on a scene from...
Using the verse
Presenter/director John Barton guides members of the Royal Shakespeare Company in a discussion and dramatization of Shakespeare's use of blank verse. In the course of trying out different stresses, the actors discover how Shakespeare uses antithesis...