Roundtable
Speaking of Shakespeare With Ralph Allen Cohen of the American Shakespeare Center Monday, April 18 8:00 PM As Founder and Director of Mission for the American Shakespeare Center, and as Professor of Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin College in Staunton, Virginia, Ralph Alan Cohen, is one of the most imaginative and influential leaders in a profession that is now focused on Shakespeare 400, a global commemoration of the playwright’s life and legacy. Mr. Cohen is the author of Shakesfear and How to Cure It: A Handbook for Teaching Shakespeare, and the founder of an annual Blackfriars Conference that attracts prominent scholars and theater professionals to his organization’s extraordinary reproduction of the indoor playhouse in which Shakespeare and his colleagues introduced such classics as The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest. He is widely regarded as a cultural pioneer, and he has earned coveted awards not only from the Commonwealth of Virginia but from such prestigious institutions as Shakespeare’s Globe in London and the Folger Shakespeare Library on Capitol Hill. During what promises to be a lively conversation with John Andrews of the Shakespeare Guild, Mr. Cohen will talk about the many ways in which he and his actors seek to provide today’s audiences with experiences similar to those of 16th- and 17th-century playgoers.