Shakespeare in the Theatre: Tina Packer

by Katharine Goodland, Peter Holland (Editor), Farah Karim Cooper (Editor), Stephen Purcell (Editor)

Overview

This book examines the work of acclaimed director Tina Packer, founder of Shakespeare&Company, whose ground-breaking approach to performing Shakespeare has made her company among the most vibrant and enduring Shakespeare theatres in America.

Tina Packer directed her first Shakespeare play at London Academy for Music and Dramatic Art in 1971. More than 50 years later she continues to direct and teach at Shakespeare&Company, which she founded in Lenox, Massachusetts in 1978. Drawing on new interviews with the original casts and creative teams as well as Tina Packer herself, this book is the first comprehensive analysis of all of her professional Shakespeare productions in their cultural and historical context.

Over a career that spans 5 decades, Packer has directed or acted in virtually all of Shakespeare's plays, along with many other classical and contemporary works. As artistic director she guided her company through times of expansion as well as belt-tightening, driven by her conviction that the purpose of theatre is to heal and that to fulfil that purpose, acting must tell the truth. With in-depth case studies of 12 of her most significant productions, Katharine Goodland offers a clear account of Packer's work and contribution to Shakespearean theatre in America while illuminating the embedded nature of regional Shakespeare in communities across the United States.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350205727
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	06/13/2024
Series:	Shakespeare in the Theatre
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	216
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Katharine Goodland is Professor of English at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, USA, and author of Female Mourning and Tragedy in Medieval and Renaissance English Drama (2006; 2016), several articles and reviews on contemporary Shakespeare productions, and editor of A Directory of Shakespeare in Performance in North America (2 vols. 2007; 2011). She serves on the editorial board of SB: The Journal of Early Modern Drama in Performance, and has worked as dramaturge at Shakespeare&Company and Bedlam.
Katharine Goodland is Professor of English at the College of Staten Island, USA, and author of Female Mourning and Tragedy in Medieval and Renaissance English Drama (2006; 2016), several articles and reviews on contemporary Shakespeare productions, and editor of A Directory of Shakespeare in Performance in North America (2 vols. 2007; 2011). She serves on the editorial board of SB: The Journal of Early Modern Drama in Performance, and has worked as dramaturge at Shakespeare&Company and Bedlam.
Peter Holland holds the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies in the Department of Film, Television and Theatre and is Associate Dean for the Arts at the University of Notre Dame. He was formerly Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Stratford-upon-Avon and is editor of Shakespeare Survey and co-general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare Topics series.

Peter Holland is McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies at the University of Notre Dame, USA.

Peter Holland is the McMeel Family Chair in Shakespeare Studies and the Associate Dean for the Arts at the University of Notre Dame, USA.
Farah Karim-Cooper is Head of Higher Education&Research, Shakespeare's Globe and Professor of Shakespeare Studies, King's College London, UK.

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Stephen Purcell is Assistant Professor in English at the University of Warwick, UK.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Acknowledgements
Series Preface
Preface

Introduction

1. For the Joy of Living in his Great Poetry
2. And We'll Look, not at Visions, but at Realities
3. What a Dream Was Here!
4. Kol Nidre

Appendix: Productions Directed by Tina Packer
Notes
References
Index