Midsummer Night in the Garden

Contact: cherry@arachnepress.com

It cannot have escaped the notice of most people that it is 400 years since Shakespeare shuffled off this mortal coil. There’s been a lot of celebrating, and not to be outdone, we are joining in, not on his birthday, not on his death day, but at Midsummer.
The nice people at Lewisham Libraries are hosting us for a free event on Tuesday 21st June at 7:30 on the front lawn of Manor House Library (with performances on the front steps) or inside in the Baring room if the weather is unseasonable.
Shakespeare’s great skill was in telling an old story in a new way, so we are shamelessly tearing a leaf from his folio. We have poetry, story, and song, based on Shakespeare’s own work, the characters he invented, and his life.
Songs from Raise the Roof and from Rachel Bellman & Elizabeth Charlesworth (performers to be announced), Poems from Pat Tompkins, Alison Absolute, Shakespeare himself, Kim Russell, Sarah Lawson, Elinor Brooks and Jennifer A McGowan and a story from Lucy Ribchester.

Where the author can’t make it we have actors reading for them: Big thanks to Katy Darby, Carrie Cohen and Saul Reichlin.
Discover what’s in a name, what you get when (almost) the complete works of Mr Shakespeare are reduced to Haiku, five of Shakespeare’s women get their own poem, as does his mother, Juliet’s neighbour makes a complaint, one of Shakespeare’s sonnets gets turned on its head, the Illyria of Twelfth Night resurfaces in a story of modern-day refugees and find out where (and from whom) young Will stole his best lines... and what Rosalind and Orlando’s wooing sounds like set to music.

Price: £0.00

Time: 7:30pm