More Backing for the Bard
Better Bankside’s partnership with Southwark Playhouse has taken a major step forward. The Playhouse’s famous annual ‘Shakespeare for Schools’ production will now be the subject of a new ‘Emerging Director’ award, with the winner directing the selected play.
Said Playhouse Education Director Tom Wilson:
‘We value our relationship with Better Bankside, and wanted to find a way to acknowledge it, while enhancing our well-established education programme. When we advertised for a director for the 2006 “Shakespeare for Schools” production, we received more than 100 applications, many from very well-known up-and-coming directors. This year we will involve Better Bankside in the decision as to the director, and then celebrate his or her appointment with a modest award ceremony. Awards such as this are comparatively rare in our business, and I am certain that we will be inundated once again.’
Candidates for the appointment will be asked to choose a play from a shortlist of those assigned for GCSE exams, and then to propose a staging which is both original, but also comprehensible for a young audience.
January’s production of Macbeth – featured in the April ebrief – was widely praised, receiving four out of five stars in Time Out, which said 'Tom Wilson's invaluable Shakespeare for Schools programme at Southwark Playhouse is a credit to the most theatrical of boroughs. Children from 22 state schools, most of them primaries, will see this show for free - a beautiful statistic in anyone's agenda.' The 19 daytime performances were free to schools in Southwark and Lambeth, with a long waiting list.
Southwark Playhouse
http://www.southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/
