Coventry City Council

World Shakespeare Festival

The World Shakespeare Festival, led by the Royal Shakespeare Company, celebrated Shakespeare as international property and the British as international people, through an unprecedented World Shakespeare Festival, centring on exchange and collaboration.

Focusing on the relationship between the many communities of the world’s diaspora represented in the UK, the Festival included major collaborations between leading UK and international theatre companies, artists and large-scale premieres of international Shakespeare productions.

Major UK partners already include the National Theatre and the Shakespeare’s Globe, which will be producing its own Shakespeare project as part of the Festival.

The Festival empowered young people at home and abroad through ownership of Shakespeare and the challenge and fun of performance and it also collaborated with the huge non-professional theatre movement in the UK.

Schools and communities across the UK linked with their peers in other countries, culminating in live performances at regional festivals.

The main performance hubs were Stratford-upon-Avon, London and Newcastle, with further regional centres for community and schools performances, as well as touring and online activity worldwide.

The Festival ran from Shakespeare’s birthday on 23 April 2012 until the start of the Olympic Games on 27 July 2012. 

 

For more information please visit: www.worldshakespearefestival.org.uk or click here to download a full copy of the festival programme