After announcing earlier this winter that Cymbeline in the Anthropocene would be joined by Dr. Mónica Maffía's Setebos company in Argentina, we are now delighted to announce another new collaborator: please join us in welcoming Western Summer Shakespeare of London, Ontario, Canada, who join us under the leadership of Dr. Joanna Devereux, a professor at the University of Western Ontario.

An uneasy transition of power drives the tension in episodes 9 and 10 of Merced Shakespearefest's Ricardo II: A Bilingual Adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II. 

In late January, three artist came together to discuss the state of theatre in a panel titled "The Plague's the Thing: Theatre Before, During, and After the Pandemic." Featuring playwright Colleen Murphy, poet Gary Geddes, and host Jerry Wasserman, the talk was hosted by the University of British Columbia's Green College, in the series "Medium to Extreme: Unlocking the Power of the Arts."

In Fall 2020, Dr. Hillary Eklund taught a first-year seminar, “Shakespeare’s Worlds” for the Honors Program at Loyola University New Orleans @Loyola_NOLA. In this project-based course, students explored the various “worlds” in which Shakespeare lived and worked, as well as the scholarly and artistic contexts where we encounter his work today. For their final projects, students took creative approaches to making meaning with Shakespeare’s texts. Today, we are pleased to feature two of the final projects by Dr. Eklund's students: a visual rendering of Innogen as a woman king, and a playlist of songs corresponding to some of the central characters' defining moments. 

Cymbeline in the Anthropocene is thrilled to announce the first series of performances from our collaborating theatres. The open-air, Australian Cymbeline is a co-production of La Trobe University Student Theatre & Film and director Rob Conkie, and will run in Melbourne between March 24-27th, 2021, as part of LaTrobe’s MOAT Festival.

Episodes 7 and 8 of Merced Shakespearefest's Ricardo II: A Bilingual Adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II document the impetuous king's breakdown, leading to him reliquishing the throne to Henry Bolingbroke.

Amber Loper’s A Caged Bird’s Song: An Avian Adaptation of Shakespeare’s Cymbeline  is a brilliant creation of the ecocritical and post-human imagination. Inspired by the play’s abundant bird imagery and Rebecca Ann Bach’s "Avian Shakespeare," Loper playfully reimagines Shakespeare’s original characters and conflicts from the viewpoint of birds in order to bring to life their hardships in the environmentally degraded conditions of 20th and 21st century California.

Episode six of Merced Shakespearefest’s Ricardo II…., entitled “Derechos y Regalias / Rights and Royalties” dramatizes the play’s power imbalances through vastly contrasting natural settings. The king’s excesses and mismanagement of resources are embodied in the stark contrast between the almost literally scorched earth he has left across the land, and the artificial lushness of the spaces he himself inhabits.

In Fall 2020, the English Senior Capstone course at UC Merced, led by Dr. Katherine Steele Brokaw, spent the semester researching Shakespeare and Ecology. Students read the work of several ecocritics and environmental activists, as well as A Midsummer Night’s Dream, King Lear, and Cymbeline. The students developed their own research projects, and also did collaborative research projects related to an eco-adaptation of Cymbeline, in anticipation of Shakespeare in Yosemite’s Spring 2021 production of the play.

Episode five of Merced Shakespearefest's Ricardo II: A Bilingual Adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II is titled "Hombres de Guerra / Men of War," but the standout character in this installment of the play is Queen Isabella.