Merced Shakespearefest's Ricardo II: A Bilingual Adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II comes to a close with episode 12 "Rey de Fieras / King of Beasts." In stark contrast to the lush, green, outdoor settings that framed the play's political intrigues, the play ends on a backdrop of harsh concrete settings that eerily stand for the violence humans wreak against one another and their environments. 

Governor General Award-winning playwright Colleen Murphy has crafted a darkly animated, multi-spirited response to the theatrical displacement caused by the pandemic. "Mouth Ghost" was originally part of a UBC Green College panel on theatre in the pandemic, titled "The Plague’s the Thing: Theatre Before, During, and After the Pandemic." The poem's brilliance has haunted us since we featured the panel on this blog, and deserves an encore of its own.

The 49th annual meeting of the Shakespeare Association of America runs between March 30-April 4. Cymbeline in the Anthropocene will take part in a panel entitled "Performing Shakespeare in a Time of Ecological Crisis: A Global Roundtable," featuring project leader Dr. Randall Martin alongside theatre experts from around the globe.

A recent article by Lily Janiak published in the San Francisco Chronicle captures the urgent entanglement of Shakespeare and ecological crisis that forms the focus of Cymbeline in the Anthropocene.

Merced Shakespearefest's Ricardo II: A Bilingual Adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II takes a brief genre detour in episode 11, "Perdón por Reyes / Pardon for Kings." Contrasting with the rich, outdoor settings of most of the action so far, this episode examines the play's political conflict in the microcosm of the Duke and Duchess of York's domestic life, revolving around their son, Aumerio. 

Since we announced the performance release date for Shakespeare in Yosemite earlier this week, this felt like the perfect timing to present our interview with the directors of Imogen in the Wild: Dr. Katherine Steele Brokaw and Dr. Paul Prescott. Read on for more background behind the production, the company, and the rich cultural and ecological setting in which both have grown. 

Cymbeline in the Anthropocene is pleased to announce our second round of Cymbeline performance: Shakespeare in Yosemite's adaptation Imogen in the Wild will be released on April 22nd, on Earth Day. Imogen in the Wild will be the second production from our collaborators this April, closely coinciding with Rob Conkie and La Trobe University Theatre's Cymbeline, which runs between April 21-24 in Melbourne, Australia.

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.