Working Shakespeare: Workshop DVD –  

Part Two of a five-part educational acting series. The programme follows some of the best-known actors in Hollywood as they test their Shakespearean mettle, joining with their British counterparts at a master class in New York City conducted by the Royal Shakespeare Company. The three-day master class is conducted by the RSC’s Voice Director Cicely Berry and Head of Voice Andrew Wade. Among the actors taking part are Samuel L. Jackson, Emily Watson, Robert Sean Leonard, Helen Hunt, Blythe Danner, Toby Stephens, Kate Burton, Victor Garber and Clare Danes.

The group explores how the very choice of language and imagery takes us into the world of the play, and into the inner world of the character. Cicely Berry introduces us to the opening scenes of two of Shakespeare’s most powerful plays: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Hamlet. Students work on the first three speeches of The Dream, where they uncover the hidden passion and sexuality in Shakespeare’s language that set the mind’s stage for the extraordinary romance of that midsummer night. In Ham…