Shakespeare experts from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) will be helping a new generation of young actors take the spotlight to ensure the great playwright's legacy lives on, 400 years after his death.
Saturday, April 23 marks four centuries since the Bard's death and all this year, events, plays, research and celebrations are taking place across the world to mark the occasion.
And the day before - Friday, April 22 - DMU staff and students will be showing just how relevant Shakespeare's work still is and engaging young children in exploring and enjoying the scope of his plays.
Most of Friday's celebrations will take place at Leicester's Guildhall. Throughout the morning, Drama Studies and Performing Arts students from the Shakespeare in Performance module will show moments from The Taming of the Shrew to primary schoolchildren, and then support them to put on performances of their own.
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While this is taking place, back at DMU's Heritage Centre, Professor Dominic Shellard, Vice-Chancellor of DMU, and Dr Siobhan Keenan, Reader in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature will launch their new co-authored book, Shakespeare's Cultural Capital, which explores the economic and social impact of Shakespeare's work in the UK and beyond over the last 400 years.
They will be joined in a series of talks given at the Heritage Centre by Deborah Cartmell, Professor in English at DMU.
Professor Gabriel Egan said: "Shakespeare's insight and curiosity into what makes us humans is so rich and so deep that his work will always be relevant, no matter how many hundreds of years have passed since his lifetime.
"This anniversary will engage yet another generation with his plays and poetry, setting them thinking about what it means to be - or not - and inspiring a love of language and performance."
Posted on Tuesday 19 April 2016