As theatres continue to adapt their productions to continuing global pandemic measures, theatre companies like Merced Shakespearefest are transforming some productions into film. Enter Ricardo II: A Bilingual Adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard II, a production originally intended for the stage, which has begun airing in weekly episodes on Merced Shakespearefest's Youtube channel.

In the second of our interviews with Cymbeline in the Anthropocene's collaborating directors, we spoke to Dunay Yespaev Amandykovich of the Stanislavsky Theatre in Karaganda, Kazakhstan. Read below for a glimpse of how theatres in Kazakhstan are adapting to Covid-19 conditions, and keep an eye on this blog for more directors' interviews soon!

In our second installment of the Other Cymbelines series features a stripped-down production of Cymbeline  by the YXE Shakespeare Lab in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada, as told by project leader Skye Brandon.

"Every theatre performance is a kind of game," begins Tim Carroll, illustrating his vision of directing theatre in this interview on Shakespeare Link UK's website. A part of Shakespeare Link's "Sharing Shakespeare" series, Carroll's interview offers insight into how a director makes (and sometimes breaks) the game rules of every performance. 

A new short film adaptation of The Tempest, now available for viewing, interrogates the human and environmental damages of colonialism. A production of Montana In-Site Theatre, the Oguta Island is written and co-directed by Nnamdi Kanaga, who also stars as Onyeka, a powerfully reimagined Caliban who has the full knowledge of African history and resistance to colonialism. 

The Willow Globe team's Sharing Cymbeline project recently presented their community's latest renditions from act III of Cymbeline. Act III is rife with deception, revenge schemes, secret identities, unwitting family reunions, and a classically cross-dressed heroine, with Innogen disguised as Fidele to escape a murder plot.

As part of the Montana Book Festival this last week, our collaborators Randall Martin and Gretchen E. Minton met online to discuss the publication of Gretchen's latest monograph, Shakespeare in Montana: Big Sky Country's Love Affair with the World's Most Famous Writer. Congratulations, Gretchen!

After a brief summer break in August, the Cymbeline in the Anthropocene blog is back this month! This week, we are sharing an interview with our Willow Globe team member Evelyn O'Malley, conducted by actor Jamie Wilkes for Shakespeare Link UK. 

At the first ever Cymbeline in the Anthropocene meeting in January, our collaborators gathered in Santa Barbara, California, to exchange ideas. After the first day of introductions, directors and actors took to the stage to experiment with sections of Cymbeline in person. One result was a staging by actors of the local Lit Moon Theatre Company of the strangely beautiful burial of Fidele/Innogen during a thunderstorm, which merged ideas about ecological grief into the elegiac dialogue. Read Shakespeare in Yosemite co-director Katherine Steele Brokaw's thoughts on this scene below, and watch the video for a glimpse at what an ecodramaturgical Cymbeline might look like.

In the coming months, Cymbeline in the Anthropocene will be interviewing our collaborating directors to check on how their companies are adapting through the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. Here is our first interview in the series, with Rob Conkie, who is based at La Trobe University in Melbourne Australia. Keep an eye on the blog for more interviews soon!