Download or read book Prison Shakespeare written by Rob Pensalfini and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-01-26 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the development of the global phenomenon of Prison Shakespeare, from its emergence in the 1980s to the present day. It provides a succinct history of the phenomenon and its spread before going on to explore one case study the Queensland Shakespeare Ensemble's (Australia) Shakespeare Prison Project in detail. The book then analyses the phenomenon from a number of perspectives, and evaluates a number of claims made about the outcomes of such programs, particularly as they relate to offender health and behaviour. Unlike previous works on the topic, which are largely individual case studies, this book focuses not only on Prison Shakespeare's impact on the prisoners who directly participate, but also on prison culture and on broader social attitudes towards both prisoners and Shakespeare.

Download or read book Shakespeare Saved My Life written by Laura Bates and published by Sourcebooks, Inc.. This book was released on 2013-04-02 with total page 259 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A female professor, a super maximum security prisoner, and how Shakespeare saved them both Shakespeare professor and prison volunteer Laura Bates thought she had seen it all. That is, until she decided to teach Shakespeare in a place the bard had never been before—supermax solitary confinement. In this unwelcoming place, surrounded by inmates known as the worst of the worst, is Larry Newton. A convicted murderer with several escape attempts under his belt and a brilliantly agile mind on his shoulders, Larry was trying to break out of prison at the same time Laura was fighting to get her program started behind bars. A testament to the power of literature, Shakespeare Saved My Life is a remarkable memoir. Fans of Orange is the New Black (Piper Kerman), A Place to Stand (Jimmy Baca) and I Couldn't Help Myself (Wally Lamb) will be be inspired by the story of the most unlikely friendship, one bonded by Shakespeare and lasting years—a friendship that would, in the end, save more than one life. What readers are saying about Shakespeare Saved My Life: "I was tremendously moved by both the potential impact of Shakespeare and learning on human beings and the story of this one man." "This is one of the most extraordinary books I've ever read." "I have never read a book that touched me as much as this memoir." "It is a challenging and remarkable story." "I loved this book so much. It changed my life." What reviewers are saying about Shakespeare Saved My Life: "You don't have to be a William Shakespeare fan, a prisoner, or a prison reformer to appreciate this uplifting book. "Shakespeare Saved My Life" also reveals many important truths ... about the meaning of empathy in our dealings with others"—Finger Lake Times "Shakespeare Saved My Life touches on the search for meaning in life, the struggles that complicate the path to triumph and the salvation that can be found in literature's great works ... An inspiring account."—Shelf Awareness "Opening the mind's prison proves enormously gratifying, not to mention effective ... brave, groundbreaking work"—Publishers Weekly "An eye-opening study reiterating the perennial power of books, self-discipline, and the Bard of Avon."—Kirkus "A powerful testament to how Shakespeare continues to speak to contemporary readers in all sorts of circumstances."—Booklist

Download or read book The Robben Island Shakespeare written by Matthew Hahn and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-01-12 with total page 81 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the Apartheid years in South Africa, a copy of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare was smuggled around the prison on Robben Island. The book's significance resides in the fact that the book's owner, Sonny Venkatratham, passed it to a number of his fellow political prisoners in the single cells, including Nelson Mandela, asking them to mark their favourite passages with a signature and date. Informally known as "the Robben Island Bible", numerous prisoners selected the speeches that meant the most to them and their experience as political prisoners. In 2008 and 2010, playwright and scholar Matthew Hahn conducted interviews with eight former political prisoners in South Africa. Offering a vivid and startling account of the experience of these political prisoners during Apartheid, this extraordinary verbatim play weaves Shakespeare's words together with first-hand accounts from these men. They offer their reflections on their time as Liberation activists and, twenty years later, on the costs, consequences and whether or not it was all worth it. The play is published alongside a preface by Sonny Venkatrathnam and an introduction by South African actor, director , playwright and cultural activist John Kani.

Download or read book Hag Seed written by Margaret Atwood and published by Hogarth. This book was released on 2016-10-11 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The beloved author of The Handmaid’s Tale reimagines Shakespeare’s final, great play, The Tempest, in a gripping and emotionally rich novel of passion and revenge. “A marvel of gorgeous yet economical prose, in the service of a story that’s utterly heartbreaking yet pierced by humor, with a plot that retains considerable subtlety even as the original’s back story falls neatly into place.”—The New York Times Book Review Felix is at the top of his game as artistic director of the Makeshiweg Theatre Festival. Now he’s staging aTempest like no other: not only will it boost his reputation, but it will also heal emotional wounds. Or that was the plan. Instead, after an act of unforeseen treachery, Felix is living in exile in a backwoods hovel, haunted by memories of his beloved lost daughter, Miranda. And also brewing revenge, which, after twelve years, arrives in the shape of a theatre course at a nearby prison. Margaret Atwood’s novel take on Shakespeare’s play of enchantment, retribution, and second chances leads us on an interactive, illusion-ridden journey filled with new surprises and wonders of its own. Praise for Hag-Seed “What makes the book thrilling, and hugely pleasurable, is how closely Atwood hews to Shakespeare even as she casts her own potent charms, rap-composition included. . . . Part Shakespeare, part Atwood, Hag-Seed is a most delicate monster—and that’s ‘delicate’ in the 17th-century sense. It’s delightful.”—Boston Globe “Atwood has designed an ingenious doubling of the plot of The Tempest: Felix, the usurped director, finds himself cast by circumstances as a real-life version of Prospero, the usurped Duke. If you know the play well, these echoes grow stronger when Felix decides to exact his revenge by conjuring up a new version of The Tempest designed to overwhelm his enemies.”—Washington Post “A funny and heartwarming tale of revenge and redemption . . . Hag-Seed is a remarkable contribution to the canon.”—Bustle

Download or read book Mad Blood Stirring written by Simon Mayo and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2019-01-01 with total page 387 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The war of 1812 is over, but for the inmates at Dartmoor Prison, peace—like home—is still a long way away.On New Year’s Eve 1814, the American sailors of the Eagle finally arrive at Dartmoor prison, bedraggled, exhausted, but burning with hope. They’ve only had one thing to sustain them during the har- rowing voyage—a snatched whisper overheard along the way. The war is finally over.Joe Hill thought he’d left the war outside these walls but it’s quickly clear that there’s a different type of fight to be had within. The seven prison blocks surrounding him have been segregated; six white and one black.Inspired by true events, this novel recounts the remarkable story of the first ever all-black Shakespeare production, staged by segregated American prisoners of war. It is a story of hope and freedom, of loss and suffering. It is a story about how sometimes, in our darkest hour, it can be the most unlikely of things that see us through.

Download or read book Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration written by Ashley E. Lucas and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Obscured behind concrete and razor wire, the lives of the incarcerated remain hidden from public view. Inside the walls, imprisoned people all over the world stage theatrical productions that enable them to assert their humanity and capabilities. Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration offers a uniquely international account and exploration of prison theatre. By discussing a range of performance practices tied to incarceration, this book examines the ways in which arts practitioners and imprisoned people use theatre as a means to build communities, attain professional skills, create social change, and maintain hope. Ashley Lucas's writing offers a distinctive blend of storytelling, performance analysis, travelogue, and personal experience as the child of an incarcerated father. Distinct examples of theatre performed in prisons are explored throughout the main text and also in a section of Critical Perspectives by international scholars and practitioners.

Download or read book Performing New Lives written by Jonathan Shailor and published by Jessica Kingsley Publishers. This book was released on 2011 with total page 307 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book will provide valuable reading for drama therapists, theatre artists, probation workers, prison educators, psychologists, and anyone else interested in the role of the performing arts in criminal justice. --Book Jacket.

Download or read book Hamlet s Dreams written by David Schalkwyk and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2013-01-31 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hamlet's Dreams brings together the Robben Island Prison of Nelson Mandela and the prison that is Denmark for Shakespeare's Hamlet. David Shalkwyk uses the circulation of the so-called 'Robben Island Shakespeare', a copy of the Alexander edition of the Complete Works that was secretly circulated, annotated and signed by a group of Robben Island political prisoner in the 1970s (including Nelson Mandela), to examine the representation and experience of imprisonment in South African prison memoirs and Shakespeare's Hamlet. The book looks at the ways in which oppressive spaces or circumstances restrict the ways in which personal identity can be formed or formulated in relation to others. The 'bad dreams' that keep Hamlet from considering himself the 'king of infinite space' are, it argues, the need for other people that becomes especially evident in situations of real or psychological imprisonment.

Download or read book Shakespeare Behind Bars written by Jean Trounstine and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2014-06-24 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply stirring account of one woman's experience teaching drama to women in prison. I began to understand that female prisoners are not "damaged goods" and to recognize that most of these women had toughed it out in a society that favors others-- by gender, class, or race. They are Desdemonas suffering because of jealous men, Lady Macbeths craving the power of their spouses, Portias disguised as men in order to get ahead, and Shylocks who, being betrayed, take the law into their own hands. So writes Jean Trounstine in Shakespeare Behind Bars. In this gripping account, Trounstine, who spent ten years teaching at Framingham Women's Prison in Massachusetts, focuses on six inmates who, each in her own way, discover in the power of great drama a way to transcend the painful constraints of incarceration. We meet: * Dolly, a fiftyish grandmother who brings her knitting to classes and starts a battered-women's group in prison *Bertie, a Jamaican beauty estranged from her homeland, torn with guilt, and shunned for her crime * Kit, a tough, wisecracking con who stirs up trouble whenever she can-- until she's threatened with losing her kids * Rose, an outsider in the prison community who lives with HIV and eventually gains acceptance through drama * Rhonda, a college-educated leader whose life falls apart when her father dies and who struggles in prison to reestablish her roots * Mamie, a nurse in the free world, now the prison gardener who makes cards with poetry and dried flowers and battles her own illness behind bars Shakespeare Behind Bars is a uniquely powerful work that gives voice to forgotten women, sheds a compassionate light on a dark world, and proves the redemptive power of art and education.

Download or read book Prison Shakespeare and the Purpose of Performance Repentance Rituals and the Early Modern written by N. Herold and published by Springer. This book was released on 2015-12-11 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the last decade a number of prison theatre programs have developed to rehabilitate inmates by having them perform Shakespearean adaptations. This book focuses on how prison theatre today reveals certain elements of the early modern theatre that were themselves responses to cataclysmic changes in theological doctrine and religious practice.

Download or read book Shakespeare on Toast written by Ben Crystal and published by Icon Books Ltd. This book was released on 2015-12-24 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Actor, producer and director Ben Crystal revisits his acclaimed book on Shakespeare for the 400th anniversary of his death, updating and adding three new chapters. Shakespeare on Toast knocks the stuffing from the staid old myth of the Bard, revealing the man and his plays for what they really are: modern, thrilling, uplifting drama. The bright words and colourful characters of the greatest hack writer are brought brilliantly to life, sweeping cobwebs from the Bard – his language, his life, his world, his sounds, his craft. Crystal reveals man and work as relevant, accessible and alive – and, astonishingly, finds Shakespeare's own voice amid the poetry. Whether you're studying Shakespeare for the first time or you've never set foot near one of his plays but have always wanted to, this book smashes down the walls that have been built up around this untouchable literary figure. Told in five fascinating Acts, this is quick, easy and good for you. Just like beans on toast.

Download or read book Titus Andronicus written by William Shakespeare and published by . This book was released on 1898 with total page 112 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Measure for Measure written by William Shakespeare and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006-07-06 with total page 84 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the rediscovery of Elizabethan stage conditions early this century, admiration for Measure for Measure has steadily risen. It is now a favorite with the critics and has attracted widely different styles of performance. At one extreme the play is seen as a religious allegory, at the other it has been interpreted as a comedy protesting against power and privilege. Brian Gibbons focuses on the unique tragi-comic experience of watching the play, the intensity and excitement offered by its dramatic rhythm, the reversals and surprises that shock the audience even to the end. The introduction describes the play's critical reception and stage history and how these have varied according to prevailing social, moral and religious issues, which were highly sensitive when Measure for Measure was written, and have remained so to the present day.

Download or read book Set Me Free written by Salvatore Striano and published by Text Publishing. This book was released on 2017-10-02 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sasà grew up in Naples. He never went to school, and instead grew up with street violence and bloodshed, becoming the leader of a gang of boys mixed up with the Camorra by the age of fourteen. At the age of thirty, he was in prison, his life all but mapped out. That’s when Shakespeare steps in. At Sasà’s most hopeless point, he is persuaded to join the prison’s drama troupe. In Shakespeare’s Tempest, Sasà stumbles on what he needs to explain the world which has defined his own life. Set Me Free: How Shakespeare Saved A Life is a story about betrayal, forgiveness and, above all, the transformative power of reading. Salvatore Striano was born in 1972 in Naples. During a stint in prison, he discovered a love of reading and theatre. Striano is now a successful actor and has had a number of roles in cinema and TV, including Cesare deve morire, based on Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar (Golden Bear at the Berlin Festival). ‘An interesting and lively story of an individual who rediscovers his dignity’ Otago Daily Times

Download or read book If We Were Villains written by M. L. Rio and published by Flatiron Books. This book was released on 2017-04-11 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Much like Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, M. L. Rio’s sparkling debut is a richly layered story of love, friendship, and obsession...will keep you riveted through its final, electrifying moments.” —Cynthia D’Aprix Sweeney, New York Times bestselling author of The Nest "Nerdily (and winningly) in love with Shakespeare...Readable, smart.” —New York Times Book Review On the day Oliver Marks is released from jail, the man who put him there is waiting at the door. Detective Colborne wants to know the truth, and after ten years, Oliver is finally ready to tell it. A decade ago: Oliver is one of seven young Shakespearean actors at Dellecher Classical Conservatory, a place of keen ambition and fierce competition. In this secluded world of firelight and leather-bound books, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingénue, extras. But in their fourth and final year, good-natured rivalries turn ugly, and on opening night real violence invades the students’ world of make-believe. In the morning, the fourth-years find themselves facing their very own tragedy, and their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, each other, and themselves that they are innocent. If We Were Villains was named one of Bustle's Best Thriller Novels of the Year, and Mystery Scene says, "A well-written and gripping ode to the stage...A fascinating, unorthodox take on rivalry, friendship, and truth."

Download or read book Shakespeare Inside written by Amy Scott-Douglass and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2007-03-29 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shakespeare Inside goes behind the scenes to reveal Shakespeare at work in the most decisive institutional context of our time - in prisons. Based upon the author's experience of watching prison yard rehearsals and performances, and interviewing inmates, program directors, and wardens, Shakespeare Inside is not an objective, dispassionate account of how Shakespeare is bastardized by repressive institutions but offers a record of fiercely personal experiences. We hear ex-offender Mike Smith detail how playing Desdemona was vital to his rehabilitation; we sit in the audience of women inmates as they respond to the all-male Shakespeare Behind Bars touring production of Julius Caesar; and we listen to a chorus of unnamed voices explain how rewriting Hamlet helps them to survive solitary confinement. Shakespeare Inside probes any assumptions we might have about Shakespeare's performative function and asks what - if anything - is the proper place of Shakespeare in today's society.

Download or read book Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation written by Alexa Huang and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-10-23 with total page 450 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Making an important new contribution to rapidly expanding fields of study surrounding the adaptation and appropriation of Shakespeare, Shakespeare and the Ethics of Appropriation is the first book to address the intersection of ethics, aesthetics, authority, and authenticity.