Olympic year is upon us – or, as it is known among those more interested in drama than in athletics, the year of the World Shakespeare Festival.
As well as continuing to strengthen its own international partnerships – with, for instance, a live internet-linked round table discussion with the Munich Shakespeare Library on 19 January 2012 on the theme of Shakespeare and Germany – the Institute is closely involved in many aspects of the Festival. The RSC’s Open Stages project, for instance, by which the company is engaging for the first time with amateur groups around the country, is being studied by Michael Dobson, a consultant on the project since he began research on his recent but already acclaimed Shakespeare and Amateur Performance. He will also be writing about the Globe’s project of hosting productions of 36 Shakespeare plays in 36 languages.
On the transatlantic front in 2012, all three Institute Professors have major roles to play on the programme of the Shakespeare Association of America’s annual meeting in Boston in April, where Professor John Jowett will be addressing questions that arise from his work on the new edition of the most high-profile and admired collected Shakespeare, the Oxford edition, associated from its inception with the Shakespeare Institute. Michael Dobson will also be presenting work in Chicago and in California, notably at a conference on literary biography at the Huntington Library.