Shakespeare and the Globe

In March 2017, the most historically accurate re-creation of Shakespeare’s Globe stage in North America made its debut at Hofstra University. While much of the campus was preparing for the start of the spring semester, construction
on a historic Hofstra Globe stage and rehearsals for its first production – Hamlet – were underway at the Toni and Martin Sosnoff Theater at the John Cranford Adams Playhouse.

Hofstra Professor of Drama David Henderson, the director of this project, spent considerable time abroad consulting with the archivists and design staff of Shakespeare’s Globe in London; the result of his efforts, the Hofstra Globe stage, is a working laboratory for students, faculty, and guest artists that has no parallel in the United States. In fall 2020, the Globe will be erected again for the University’s 72nd annual Shakespeare Festival, and an academic symposium has been planned to explore and discuss the Globe and what we have learned since renowned Shakespeare scholar John Cranford Adams designed Hofstra’s first Globe stage reproduction in 1951.

Panels and presentations will address the following questions:

• What have we learned about Shakespeare’s London theaters since John Cranford Adams’ first attempts to re-create the Globe stage?
• What have we learned about early English drama and the Elizabethan/Jacobean theatre as a result of digital archival innovations such as the REED (Records of Early English Drama) project and Shakespeare Documented?
• What have we learned about performing Shakespeare since Simon Palfrey and Tiffany Stern’s Shakespeare in Parts, and Tina Packer’s Women of Will: The Remarkable Evolution of Shakespeare’s Female Characters?

The Shakespeare and the Globe symposium and performances as part of the 72nd annual Shakespeare Festival will take place on Hofstra’s Globe stage!

• Thursday, October 29, at 8 p.m.: The Play’s the Thing (a one-hour Macbeth)
• Friday, October 30, at 8 p.m.: Cymbeline

All proposals must include the presenter or presenters’ name(s), affiliation(s), paper title, an abstract of no more than 250 words, and contact information. These materials should be directed to the symposium directors:

Submission deadline: January 21, 2020
Notification of acceptance: February 28 , 2020
For questions or further information, please contact the Hofstra Cultural Center at 516-463-5669 or hofculctr[at]hofstra.edu