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The National Arts Club

"Love all, trust a few, do wrong to none."
All's Well that Ends Well, Act i Sc. 2

The monthly Speaking of Shakespeare programs are a joint venture of the Shakespeare Guild and The National Arts Club.


	This program is dedicated to bringing actors, writers, directors, producers, critics and scholars to the National Arts Club in order to discuss the work of history’s greatest English writer, William Shakespeare, and his continuing impact. A main focus has been intimate discussions with great classical actors talking about Shakespeare in performance.



	PRESIDENT OF THE SHAKESPEARE GUILD: John F. Andrews NATIONAL ARTS CLUB PROGRAM CHAIR: Marguerite Yaghjian CO-CHAIR: Ramona Bechtos COMMITTEE: Barbara Wortman CONTACT: shakespeare@thenationalartsclub.org



	The idea of having a regular series of programs on The Bard evolved from the fortuitous meeting of NAC President Aldon James and John Andrews, President of the Shakespeare Guild founded in Washington, DC. While strolling by the club one day in 2001, John noticed the bas relief of Shakespeare on the exterior of our building. Acting on a whim, he called upon Aldon and found he was of like mind. The wheels were quickly set in motion and Shakespeare was welcomed to come inside.

COMING ATTRACTIONS 2008-2009

November 17: Hugh Hardy
A renowned Manhattan architect, Hugh Hardy has renovated iconic spaces in such storied locations as Bryant Park, the New York Botanical Garden, the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, the New Victory Theater, Radio City Music Hall, and the Rainbow Room at Rockefeller Center. He's now at work on a Brooklyn complex that will house Theatre for a New Audience. Among the many honors he has received are the Distinguished Achievement Award in Theatre Design from the U.S. Insitute for Theatre Technology and the Commissioner's Award for Excellence in Public Architecture from the U.S. General Services Administration. He is the author of Building Type Basics for Performing Arts Facilities, and he has been profiled in Architectural Digest, Esquire, The New York Times, The New Yorker, Time, and a number of other periodicals.

December 8 , 2008: Gail Kern Paster
Widely respected for her seminal books and articles (among them The Idea of the City in the Age of Shakespeare and The Body Embarrassed: Drama and the Disciplines of Shame in Early Modern England) as well as for the innovations she has introduced as Editor of Shakespeare Quarterly, one of the most venerable journals in its field, Gail Kern Paster is most familiar to many of her fans for all she's accomplished as Director of Washington's Folger Shakespeare Library, an internationally prominent institution that recently celebrated its 75th anniversary. The Folger is the globe's largest repository of material by and about Shakespeare, with roughly a third of the extant copies of the 1623 First Folio. It is also a remarkable center for the performing arts, with a celebrated early-music ensemble (the Folger Consort), an award-winning Folger Theatre, and the prestigious PEN / Faulkner Foundation among its many attractions.

On Tap for the Winter & Spring of 2009

On January 26 we'll chat with Russell Jackson, a textual advisor for several Kenneth Branagh films, a former Director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, and a Professor of English at the University of Birmingham. Mr. Jackson will be teaching a seminar at the Folger Shakespeare Library.

On February 23 we'll converse with Flora Fraser, a biographer who has given us Princesses: The Six Daughters of George III, and who is now ruminating on some of the themes in Virginia Woolf's speculations in A Room of One's Own about the Judith Shakespeare she imagines as a frustrated sister of the poet . Ms. Fraser is the daughter of Lady Antonia Fraser and the stepdaughter of Harold Pinter.

On March 16 we'll enjoy a special evening with jazz pianist Burnett Thompson, who has recorded a compact disc in which he provides musical improvisations on Shakespeare's sonnets. Mr. Thompson is the Founder of the New Columbia Swing Orchestra, and he has performed with the National Symphony Orchestra and a number of other noted ensembles.

On April 13 we'll hear from Edward H. Tenner, a writer best known for Why Things Bite Back. He'll share some thoughts about Shakespeare's impact on popular culture. Mr. Tenner is a frequent contributor to national periodicals, and he was quoted several times in a recent New York Times article about the technology of wind turbines.

On May 11 we'll meet with Barbara Gaines, Artistic Director, and Marilyn Halperin, Director of Education, at the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, an institution that won a 2008 Tony Award for its many contributions to the artistic life of the Midwest. During the CST's early years on Navy Pier, it hosted Speaking of Shakespeare programs with writer Garry Wills and actors Brian Bedford and Derek Jacobi.

On June 8 we'll have a lively dialogue with Tina Packer, the founder and Artistic Director of another influential regional theater, Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. Ms. Packer is the co-author of Power Plays, a book about what Shakespeare can teach executives about leadership, and she received an enthusiastic New York Times review for her current production of Othello.

RECENT EVENTS


		June 9 , 2008: Speaking of Shakespeare with Jeffrey Horowitz One of today’s most innovative producers and founder of the Theater for a New Audience, Mr. Horowitz discussed moving his successful run of The Merchant of Venice to Stratford-upon-Avon, a credit no other U.S. troupe has matched He also revealed plans for the construction of a permanent home for TFANA near the Brooklyn Academy of Music.

		May 12, 2008 : Speaking of Shakespeare with Edward Albee one of the leading playwrights of our time, Mr. Albee regaled the SOS audience with tales of various productions of his classics, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Zoo Story and many others. The Guild’s John Andrews touched upon some of Mr. Albee’s achievements, which included three Pulitzer Prizes and two Tony Awards.

		March 10, 2008 : Patrick Stewart Receives the The Gielgud Award A highlight of the SOS season was the special dinner honoring actor Patrick Stewart with the prestigious Gielgud Award for 2008.The evening was resplendent with toasts by many guests including Emanuel Ax, Whoopi Goldberg, Joel Grey, F. Murray Abraham, among others.Also present were Mr. Stewart‘s fellow Macbeth cast members whose great success at BAM resulted in a move to Broadway.

PREVIOUS SEASON'S GUESTS

2008 – 2009
Aldon James (President, NAC)
Kenneth Ludwig (playwright)
F. Murray Abraham (actor)
Alvin Epstein (actor)
James Shapiro (scholar/author)
John Andrews (President, Shakespeare Guild)
and Barbara O’Dwyer Lopez (English Speaking Union)
Patrick Stewart (actor)
Edward Albee (playwright)
Jeffrey Horowitz (producer/founder TFANA)

2006 – 2007
Martin Platt (director)
Ron Rosenbaum (journalist)
Eleanor Bergstein (writer)
David Kastan (professor/author)
Roger Rees (actor)
Kate Forbes (actor)
Adam Gopnik (author)
Philip Goodwin (actor)
Alden & Virginia Vaughan (scholars/authors)

2005 - 2006
Michael Kahn (diector/producer)
Adam Gopnik (author)
James Shapiro (author)
F. Murray Abraham (actor)
Katherine Meisle (actor)
Barbara Romer (art historian)
Flora Fraser (author)
Jeffrey Horowitz (producer/founder TFANA)
Christopher Plummer (actor)

2004 - 2005
Zoe Caldwell (actor)
Adam Gopnik (author)
Sir Harold Evans (author)
F. Murray Abraham (actor)
Lynn Redgrave (actor)
Robert MacNeil (author)

2003 - 2004
Richard Easton (actor)
Dana Ivey (actor)
Peter Shaffer (playwright)
Marian Seldes (actor)
Francine Segan (culinary historian)
Kevin Kline (actor)
Greg Daran (director)
Christpher Plummer (actor)

2002 - 2003
Bill Irwin (actor/author)
Jeffrey Horowitz (director/producer)
Henry Goodman (actor)
Simon Russell Beale (actor)
Roger Rees (actor)
Margot Harley (actor/producer/director)
David Schramm (actor)

2001-2002
F. Murray Abraham (actor)
Zoe Caldwell (actor)
Ben Cameron (president, Theatre Communications Group)
John Miller (biographer)

Speaking of Shakespeare has at times expanded its format, as in January 2004 when it invited culinary historian/lecturer Francine Segan to discuss the frequent references to food in Shakespeare's plays, and at the same time, had NAC's master chef Joseph Frappaolo prepare a special buffet of Elizabethan and Jacobean dishes taken from Ms. Segan's book, "Shakespeare's Kitchens." Shakespeare's influence also spread to the Film Committee in the 2004-2005 season when that committee concentrated its season on such films as Romeo & Juliet, Midsummer's Night Dream and Julius Caesar

ABOUT THE SHAKESPEARE GUILD

John F. Andrews founded The Shakespeare Guild in 1987 as a non-profit corporation that seeks to cultivate a larger audience for the poet long revered as the greatest writer in the English language. In 1994, the Guild inaugurated the Sir John Guilgud Award for Excellence in the Dramatic Arts. To learn more about The Shakespeare Guild see contact information as follows:

John F. Andrews. OBE
President, The Shakespeare Guild
58 Calle San Martin
Santa Fe, NM 87506
Phone: 505-988-9560 Fax: 505-983-0806
shakespeareguild@msn.com