Symposium:
Much Ado About Nothing in Performance
Lund University, Sweden
8-10 June, 2017
This symposium welcomes papers on Much Ado About Nothing in performance, on stage (professional or amateur productions, or anything in between) and on film (be it filmed theatre, or versions specifically made for the big or small screen). The hope is for a wide range of Much Ado-related topics; papers may, for instance, concentrate on a particular production or explore general performance practices; they may deal with appropriations and adaptations of the play in performance, or look at the extent to which productions choose to explore the shades of light and darkness in the play, dark comedy meeting near-tragedy, and how the merry war of the sexes is interwoven with more sinister elements such as jealousy and gender warfare.
The symposium will be preceded by an afternoon workshop on teaching Shakespeare’s plays through performance in secondary and tertiary education. The symposium will also include an outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing (abridged), played in English by university students (directed by Kiki Lindell).
The symposium will end with an optional trip to Elsinore Castle (Saturday, 10 June).
Guest speakers:
Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon
Lars Romann Engel, Artistic Director of HamletScenen, Elsinore Castle
Jacqui O’Hanlon, Director of Education, Royal Shakespeare Company, Stratford-upon-Avon
The symposium will be held at the Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University and in the Open-Air Museum of Cultural History, Lund.
Proposals in English (max. 500 words) together with a short biography should be sent to Kiki Lindell (kiki.lindell@englund.lu.se) and Isabelle Schwartz-Gastine (isabelle.schwartz-gastine@unicaen.fr) by 15 December, 2016.
A selection of the papers will be published in the on-line academic journal Cahiers Shakespeare en Devenir (www.shakespeare.edel.univ-poitiers.fr), general editor Pascale Drouet.