Acclaimed actress and director Janet Suzman will take part in the Shakespeare Birthday lecture on Friday 25th April at 4pm at the University of Birmingham’s Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon.
The lecture is part of a series of events in the town over the weekend to celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday.
Janet Suzman, who will be in conversation with Paul Edmondson, Head of Learning at the Shakespeare Birthday Trust, recently directed the South African company, The Baxter Theatre, who performed Hamlet at the RSC’s Complete Works Festival.
Janet was born in Johannesburg and trained at LAMDA. She became a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company in 1963 where she played many heroines including Rosaline in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Portia in Merchant of Venice, Ophelia in Hamlet, Kate in Taming of the Shrew, and Beatrice in Much Ado about Nothing.
She was involved in South African theatre during the apartheid era and produced a ground-breaking production of Othello at the Market Theatre in Johannesburg starring John Kani, who led the apartheid movement in theatre.
She has also appeared in many films and television drama productions including Dennis Potter’s The Singing Detective and is author of Acting with Shakespeare: Three Comedies, a book based on a series of acting master classes.
The lecture is sponsored by the Shakespeare Institute and The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and takes place at the Shakespeare Institute, Mason Croft, Church Street, Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire. Tickets are £5 each and can be bought from the Institute and the Birthplace Bookshop.
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For further information
Kate Chapple, Press Officer, University of Birmingham, tel 0121 414 2772 or 07789 921164.