The Shakespeare Project
In October 1983, the Riverside Shakespeare Company launched The Shakespeare Project, New York City's first major residency of actors from the Royal Shakespeare Company – with Edwin Richfield (of the RSC's highly acclaimed The Greeks), Heather Canning (of Paul Scofield's Macbeth), Christopher Ravenscroft (from the Royal Shakespeare Company's Nicholas Nickleby, Jennie Stoller and John Kane (the later two from Peter Brook's landmark production of A Midsummer Night's Dream) – conducting workshops and seminars and performing The Merchant of Venice, Dylan Thomas' Under Milk Wood, and the New York premiere of D. H. Lawrence's The Tarnished Phoenix, with a host committee of Henry Guettel, Leonard Bernstein, José Ferrer, Helen Hayes, Bernard Hughes, Bernard Jacobs, John V. Lindsay, Joshua Logan, and George Plimpton.
As Christopher Ravenscroft said on opening night of The Shakespeare Project, "I would really like to tell the Americans that they already have the talent and the technique. All they need is the practice to take the horror out of Shakespeare."
During these years, the Riverside Shakespeare Company and The Shakespeare Center gained support from numerous major benefits staged for the theatre company by Jeremy Irons, Sinéad Cusack, Roger Rees, Nicol Williamson, Andre Gregory, Raúl Juliá, Jim Dale, and by Tony Award-nominee Edward Petherbridge, (from the Royal Shakespeare Company's Nicholas Nickleby) in his one-person show, Acting Natural. In the early 1980s, Riverside's Board of Directors was headed by Judith Radasch, followed by Donna Lindsay-Goodwin. Riverside's Advisory Board during this period included Shakespeare scholars Dr. Marvin Rosenberg and Dr. Bernard Beckerman, as well as noted stage directors and actors Zoe Caldwell, José Ferrer, Ruth Gordon, Helen Hayes, John Hirsch, Barnard Hughes, Mary Beth Hurt, Raúl Juliá, Garson Kannin, Stacey Keach, Joshua Logan, Mildred Natwick, Trevor Nunn, Roger Rees, Milo O'Shea, Sam Waterston and Joanne Woodward.
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Famous quotes containing the word shakespeare:
“How like a winter hath my absence been
From thee, the pleasure of the fleeting year!
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What old December’s bareness everywhere!”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)