Colorado Shakespeare Festival - June 3 through August 7

The 2016 season of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival (CSF) runs through the summer. Learn more and purchase tickets. 

Book Arts League Printing Press Demonstration - Thursday, July 21 and Saturday, August 6th

6-7:30 p.m.
Green in front of Mary Rippon Theatre

The Book Arts League will present free hands-on printing demonstrations inspired by Shakespeare’s First Folio before the CSF performances. 

All the World’s a Page: Shakespeare and the Book Arts - Saturday, July 23

1–4 p.m.
Norlin Library, Center for British and Irish Studies

Do you know how the First Folio was printed? The Book Arts League does! Multiple stations will be set up to show typesetting, display the anatomy of books, demonstrate letterpress printing, and teach various binding techniques. It’s 16th- century book-making fun for the whole family!

Teaching Shakespeare Workshop - Saturday, August 6

9 a.m.–5 p.m.
Norlin Library, Center for British and Irish Studies

The Teaching Shakespeare Workshop gives teachers the tools they need to bring Shakespeare to life in their classrooms. Sponsored by the English Speaking Union, this workshop will be led by experts from the Folger National Teacher Corps and will focus on the Folger Four (scholarship, performance, curriculum and assessment). For more information or to register, visit http://www.esuus.org/denver/about/shakespeare_set_free/.

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Cakes and Ale: The Food of Shakespeare

August 6, 13, 20 and 27, times TBD
Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts

Ever wondered what Queen Elizabeth ate for dinner? Or just what Falstaff consumed so gluttonously? Executive Chef Ashlea Tobeck will host four lectures and tastings, each one centered on a different aspect of Elizabethan food, drink and cooking. $60 per lecture, $200 for all four. Limit 16 people. Registration required. Registration details here.

Lecture 1: Beverages – beer, wine and mead.
Lecture 2: Food and Medicine – honey and herbs.
Lecture 3: Meat.
Lecture 4: Bread.

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"We princes, I tell you, are set on stages  Elizabeth I in Her Own Words" Performances - Sundays, August 7 and 14

2 p.m.
Boulder Public Library

This original performances will feature the leading Elizabethan monarch who directly influenced Shakespeare’s own imagining of the impact of a strong ruler and legend. This collaborative story will explore moments of public and private Elizabeth, as a passionate and perceptive woman who loved and led with the heart and stomach of a king. Created by Amanda Giguere, Ph.D., Carole Levin, Ph.D., Tamara Meneghini, Lynn Nichols, Ph.D., James Symons, Ph.D

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Visual Sonnet Workshop - Tuesday, August 9

12-2 p.m.
CU Art Museum Classroom

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets during his lifetime, in addition to his 36 plays.  In this workshop, participants will cut up various canonical Shakespeare texts to create individual and collaborative collages, playing with visual expression as much as Shakespeare played with words.  Led by Ellie Swensson. Free; registration required. Limit: 20 participants. To register, email firstfolio@colorado.edu.

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Shakespeare Salon - Thursday, August 11

5-7 p.m.
CU Art Museum

Come see the artistic community’s response to the First Folio’s presence in Boulder.  Performances of monologues, scenes, and music will be accompanied by contemporary sonnet readings, curated by internationally-recognized and acclaimed poet Anne Waldman.  The evening will be rich with performances inspired by and taken directly from Shakespeare and his works.

Shakespeare Garden tours from the CU Museum of Natural History - Saturdays, August 13, 20 & 27

11 a.m. - 1 p.m. (on the hour)
CU Museum of Natural History BioLounge

Visitors of the First Folio can add another stop on campus for fun and educational tours. Join the CU Museum of Natural History and Colorado Shakespeare Gardens for English tea and guided tours of CU's Shakespeare Garden Saturday, August 13, 20 & 27 at 11 a.m., 12 p.m., and 1 p.m. Tours will incorporate botanicals quoted in the Bard’s works plus mythologies and lore from Elizabethan times.  Tours are free, last approximately 30 minutes and will leave on the hour from the CUMNH’s BioLounge. A special visit from “Will” Shakespeare is scheduled for August 20 & 27 11 a.m. -1:30 p.m. For more information visit www.cumuseum.edu or call 303-492-6892.

Folio Forum - Tuesday, August 16

12 p.m.
CU Art Museum 

Folio Forums feature an informal lecture by a CU professor on a topic related to Shakespeare. Drop by to discover a unique perspective on the First Folio.

Paul Hammer, Professor, Department of History, College of Arts and Sciences: “The playwright doth protest too much: Shakespeare and the politics of writing about politics.”

Diane Sieber, Associate Professor, Herbst Program of Humanities, College of Engineering & Applied Sciences: “Cervantes, Shakespeare and Madmen: the Lost Play Cardenio and the England and Spain of 1613-1616.”

Erica Ellingson, Professor, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, College of Arts and Sciences: “Exploring the Universe in Shakespeare’s Time.”
 

“Therefore turn and draw” - A Renaissance Drawing Styles Workshop - Friday, August 19

2-5 p.m.
The Dairy Center for the Arts, Boulder, Colorado

Instructor Tom Mazzullo will give a three-hour workshop of two drawing techniques used during the Elizabethan Renaissance: silverpoint on prepared paper and ink on parchment. Beginning with an art-historical slide presentation, students will then watch a brief demo, after which they will prepare their own materials and tools and work from still lifes centered around natural subjects with Shakespearean themes, such as bird mounts and skulls. Sign up today!

Materials provided by instructor and The Dairy Center.

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CSF Education Day - Saturday, August 20

1-4 p.m.
CU Art Museum

The Colorado Shakespeare Festival will host a special CSF Education Day of the First Folio exhibit. Open to participants in CSF’s summer camps, School of Theatre classes, Will Power Festival students and teachers, and teachers involved in the Shakespeare & Violence Prevention school tour. Contact csfedout@colorado.edu for details.

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Found in the Folio Workshop - Saturday, August 20

1-4 p.m. 
CU Art Museum classroom

Hosted by the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, students ages 8-18 will rehearse monologues and scenes that first appeared in the First Folio, and present a free performance. Held at the CU Art Museum. To register, visit http://www.coloradoshakes.org/education/csf-school-theatre.

Folio Forum - Tuesday, August 23

12 p.m.
CU Art Museum 

Folio Forums feature an informal lecture by a CU professor on a topic related to Shakespeare. Drop by to discover a unique perspective on the First Folio.

Jim Symons, Professor Emeritus, Department of Theatre and Dance: “’Words, words, words…’ Acting Shakespeare.”

Katherine Eggert, Professor, Department of English: “Alchemy in Shakespeare’s Time.”

Richelle Munkhoff,  Assistant Professor, Department of English: “Plague and Syphilis in Shakespeare’s London.”

 

Speak the Speech: Colorado’s All-Stars Perform Shakespeare’s All-Star Speeches - Thursday, August 25

5 p.m.
CU Art Museum

Hear the best speeches in Shakespeare performed by some of Colorado’s most wonderful people! This event will feature the best of what Shakespeare, and specifically the First Folio, has to offer.
To reserve a free ticket, please visit: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/2585433

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Shakespeare and the Stars - Friday, August 26

7 p.m.
Fiske Planetarium

While our night sky is visibly not so different from Shakespeare’s view of the stars, our understanding has changed drastically. This program will combine passages from Shakespeare referring to the heavens, “yea the Great Globe itself,” with scientific explanations of the celestial phenomena against the backdrop of the spectacular planetarium.

Tickets are $10 and available at: http://bit.ly/2bg7Khh

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"We princes, I tell you, are set on stages  Elizabeth I in Her Own Words"  Talk/Panel presentation - Saturday, August 27

12 p.m.
CU Art Museum

Featuring Carole Levin, Ph.D., Willa Cather Professor of History & Director, Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Panelists include:  Amanda Giguere, Ph.D, Colorado Shakespeare Festival Education Director, Tamara Meneghini, Lynn Nichols, Ph.D. and James Symons, Ph.D, CU-Boulder.

Saturday, August 27 there will be an encore performance of “We Princes, I tell you” at 7 p.m. in the Loft Theatre, in the University Theatre Building. 

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Takács Quartet in concert - August 28 & 29

4 p.m. on August 28 and 7:30 p.m. on August 29
Grusin Music Hall, IMIG

The Takács Quartet opens its 2016-17 concert series on August 28th and 29th with an all-Beethoven program that includes a Shakespearean connection and features works from different periods of his life.

Beethoven claimed that he drew inspiration for the slow movement of his first published quartet, Opus 18, no. 1, from the tomb scene in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. An early draft of the movement includes Beethoven’s inscription, les derniers soupirs (the last breaths). The concert continues with the explosive Opus 95 and ends with one of his great Late Quartets, Opus 130. Season tickets on sale now, single tickets go on sale August 15. Get tickets here. 

Musicology Colloquium, “Shakespeare and Music” - Monday, August 29

2-4 p.m.
Chamber Hall (C-199), IMIG

A colloquium exploring three areas of interrelationships between Shakespeare’s plays and music, including music’s role in the original plays, operatic interpretations in the late 17th century and 19th-century instrumental-music responses. Presenters: Carlo Caballero, Robert Shay and Jeremy Smith.

Staging Shakespeare in a War Zone: Values and Consequences -  Monday, August 29

5–7 p.m.
University Theatre

Qais Akbar Omar, author of A Night in the Emperor's Garden, will speak on his experiences staging Love’s Labour's Lost in Kabul in 2005, the first production of the Bard in Afghanistan in 30 years. A small reception at 5 p.m. will be followed by Mr. Omar’s lecture at 5:30 p.m., and finish with a book signing. 
Register now.
Sponsored by: Friends of the Libraries

Faculty Tuesday: Voice Faculty, “Touches of Sweet Harmony” - Tuesday, August 30

7:30 p.m.
Grusin Music Hall, Imig Music Building

Members of the Voice Faculty present songs and sonnets, as well as scenes from operatic adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. Included are works by Roger Quilter, Charles Gounod, Richard Strauss, Erich Korngold and others.

Folio Forum - Tuesday, August 30

12 p.m.
CU Art Museum 

Folio Forums feature an informal lecture by a CU professor on a topic related to Shakespeare. Drop by to discover a unique perspective on the First Folio. 

William Kuskin, Senior Associate Vice Provost for Education Innovation and Special Projects: “A Monument in the Flow of Time: Why the First Folio is so important to Authorship, History, and the Notion of History.”
A discussion of the Pavier quartos, leading into the printing of the First Folio.

Thora Brylowe, Assistant Professor, Department of English: “Monuments to Shakespeare: Eighteenth Century Editions and their Engravings”

Jack Quinan: “The Shakespeare origins of ‘Frank Lloyd Wright’s New Theater’”

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Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow - Wednesday, August 31 

11:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.

Saying goodbye can be difficult, but how does one say goodbye to a 393 year old book containing plays and soliloquies that changed human history? To ensure this sorrowful parting is sweet, the CU Art Museum is hosting an all day fond farewell party to honor Shakespeare’s First Folio visit to CU Boulder. The day’s activities include guided tours of the First Folio, Shakespeare-inspired music and videos, on-stage green screen photography and face-swapping with Shakespeare, fun coloring books, and free candy and refreshments.

Admission and activities are free and photography and social media postings are encouraged.

Piano Faculty Recital: “Give me some music" - Thursday, September 1

7:30 p.m.
Grusin Music Hall, IMIG

The CU-Boulder piano faculty presents an evening of solo and chamber music inspired by Shakespeare. The program will include works by Liszt, Mendelssohn and Prokofiev, as well as a chamber work based on three Shakespeare sonnets by the late Emeritus Professor of Theory and Composition Luis Jorge Gonzalez. Performers: Andrew Cooperstock, Alejandro Cremaschi, Jennifer Hayghe, David Korevaar and Alexandra Nguyen.

International Film Series: A Midsummer Night's Dream (2014)  - Sunday, September 18

6:00 p.m. 
Muenzinger Auditorium 

From the mind of award-winning director Julie Taymor comes a Shakespeare adaptation like none other, A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM. Rich with Taymor's trademark creativity, this immersive and darkly poetic cinematic experience brings the play's iconic fairies, spells and hallucinatory lovers to life. Filmed at her sold-out stage production with cinematography by Rodrigo Prieto (Argo, Frida) and music by Academy Award-winning composer Elliot Goldenthal, the feats of visual imagination are ingenious and plentiful, but beating at the center of the film is an emotionally moving take on the deeper human aspects of Shakespeare's beloved tale.

International Film Series: Throne of Blood (1957) - Sunday, September 25

6:00 p.m. 
Muenzinger Auditorium 

Of all of Akira Kurosawa’s work, there is one that stands apart from the rest - Throne of Blood (1957), a moody, fog-drenched adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth set in feudal Japan. Writing about Kurosawa, critic Jonathan Rosenbaum stated that this is "unquestionably one of his finest works--charged with energy, imagination, and, in keeping with the subject, sheer horror."  Filmed on the slopes of Mt. Fuji, where Kurosawa constructed a stunning medieval castle and other period sets, Throne of Blood is a stylistically ambitious blending of Noh Theatre techniques and the American Western.  When the Oscar nominees for Best Foreign Language Film of 1957 were announced, Throne of Blood wasn't among them (The winner that year was Fellini's Nights of Cabiria) but Kurosawa's film is now considered an undisputed masterpiece; the poet T. S. Elliot cited it as his favorite film and Timemagazine proclaimed it "the most brilliant and original attempt ever made to put Shakespeare in pictures."

International Film Series: All Night Long (1962) - Sunday, October 2

6:00 p.m. 
Muenzinger Auditorium 

Set over the course of a single night in a sleek jazz club carved out of a waterfront warehouse, All Night Long reworks Shakespeare’s “Othello” for a culture of musicians and singers and nightclub showbiz dealings. Iago here is America drummer Johnny Cousin (Patrick McGoohan), whose plan to leave the band of jazz royalty Aurelius Rex (Paul Harris) and led his own group pivots on signing Rex’s wife, retired singer Delia Lane (Marti Stevens), as his headliner. And that means breaking them up: planting doubts, fertilizing with liberal amounts of bullshit and watching the suspicion and mistrust and jealousy blossom (helped by a manipulated tape recording designed to seal the deal).

International Film Series: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (1990) - Sunday, October 9

6:00 p.m. 
Muenzinger Auditorium 

Directed by playwright Tom Stoppard, this morality tale centers around two born losers who play minor roles in Shakespeare's Hamlet. They are summoned to Elsinore to cheer up the Prince who has been obsessing about the murder of his father. These two outsiders are baffled by Hamlet's antics and confused about their mission. To make matters worse, Richard Dreyfuss as the Chief Player in a scruffy band of traveling actors, constantly keeps them off balance with his quips about the uncertainty of life and the absurdity of death. Despite all their snappy vaudeville-style patter, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have very few whimsical remarks left when they find that the sealed note they are carrying to England's King is their own death warrant. This high-spirited screen version of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead compels us to consider the fear and fate and folly in our own lives.

International Film Series: Richard III (1995) - Sunday, October 16

6:00 p.m. 
Muenzinger Auditorium 

Ian McKellen plays Richard III, and he's a twisted, blackened, serpentine, lurching, spitting, menacing villain with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He is so hateful, it is easy to see why the Academy overlooked him for a well deserved Best Actor nomination.  The play has been updated from the 1500s to the 1930s, but in setting only. Kings are still kings and dukes are still dukes, but there are also trucks, trains, tanks, guns, suits and ties and film. It moves fast, at one hour and forty-five minutes, and an impressive chunk of that is non-speaking visual scenes. The opening scene in particular is tremendous.  It's becoming easier and easier for people not acquainted with Shakespeare to enjoy movies based on his work. This is one of the best, for both fans and non fans alike.

Twelfth Night - November 4–13​

University Theatre

Directed by Roe Green Visiting Artist Lisa Wolpe, this production of Shakespeare’s gender-bending comedy will feature an all-female cast of CU student actors. Wolpe, renowned for her work in gender and Shakespeare, is the artistic director of the Los Angeles Women’s Shakespeare Company.