Shakespeare's Globe announces 'Shakespeare and Race' festival programme

Shakespeare's Globe has announced the programme for 'Shakespeare and Race', a new festival of events opening 11 August. This is the first time in the Globe's history that the topic of race has been explored in depth over a week. This festival will highlight "the importance of race to the consideration of Shakespeare not only in his time, but more urgently, in our own." 

'Shakespeare and Race' includes a play, American Moor by Keith Hamilton Cobb, a workshop, Staging Race and Diversity in the Shakespearean Theatre, a pre-show talk for Emilia with Morgan-Lloyd Malcolm, a panel discussion of actors who have played Othello, and an international symposium featuring Kimberlé Crenshaw, Professor of Law at Columbia Law School and UCLA, who coined the term 'intersectionality'. The Sam Wanamaker Fellowship Lecture will be given by Professor Kim F. Hall and the festival starts and finishes with two theatre productions, Voices in the Dark and Hip-hop Shakespeare Unplugged. 

"This festival aims to address the racial imbalances that exist not only in the industry of theatre but also in Shakespeare studies. As an iconic Shakespeare organisation we are duty bound to engage scholars and artists of all backgrounds and facilitate important and, at times, difficult conversations about the ways in which race is being represented in theatre and in the field. Shakespeare's Globe must have this important conversation as a confident rebuttal to a dangerous regression to white privilege," said Dr. Farah Karim-Cooper, Director of the Festival and Head of Higher Education & Research.

Margaret Casely-Hayford, Chair of Shakespeare's Globe, said "Shakespeare's ability to give an eloquent voice to people of different backgrounds and in widely differing emotional states speaks to and for all of us and is what makes him enduringly powerful. He is part of all of our heritage. I am thrilled by the fact that he articulated the passion and the anguish of Italian teenagers, Scottish royals, Roman statesmen, English peasants, Danish aristocracy, a Jewish merchant and an African who was a member of the Venetian military high command! In that context it is even more thrilling that there is so much intrigue about who really was his 'dark lady'.

It is clear that he was convinced that none of us is just one thing. The festival celebrates that fact and gives those of us who don't ordinarily claim him so readily as part of our heritage, an ability and focus to do so."

The full programme for 'Shakespeare and Race' is as follows:

Saturday 11 August
7.45 pm - Voices in the Dark

Sunday 12 August
6.00 pm - American Moor by Keith Hamilton Cobb

Monday 13 August
6.00 pm - Staging Race and Diversity in the Shakespearean Theatre

Tuesday 14 August
7.00 pm - The Sam Wanamaker Fellowship Lecture

Wednesday 15 August
6.00 pm - Morgan Lloyd Malcolm in Conversation

Thursday 16 August
7.00 pm - Women and Theatre in Britain

Friday 17 August 
9.30 am - Shakespeare and Race Across Borders: A Scholarly Symposium
7.00 pm - Playing Othello

Saturday 18 August
10.00 am - Shakespeare and Race Across Borders: A Scholarly Symposium
7.45 pm - Hip-hop Shakespeare Unplugged

'Shakespeare and Race' is at Shakespeare's Globe from 11 August until 18 August.