Shakespeare in Ten Acts

In the year in which we mark the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, a major new exhibition at the British Library, Shakespeare in Ten Acts, looks at how Shakespeare became ‘the Bard’ by focusing on ten key performances. These ‘Ten Acts’ are not necessarily the most famous performances, but moments in history which changed the course of Shakespeare’s legacy, from the first performance of Hamlet at the Globe in around 1600 to a radical reinterpretation of the same play for the digital age from US theatre group The Wooster Group in 2013. Shakespeare in Ten Acts, which runs from 15 April – 6 September 2016, will celebrate how our most famous playwright’s course never did run smooth, tracing the rises and falls in his reputation – from the Shakespeare adoration of the 18th century, to Tolstoy declaring he was ‘in complete disagreement with this universal adulation’. This exhibition will examine our cultural obsession with Shakespeare while exploring all the elements that make Shakespeare in performance so popular, including the origins of special effects, costumes, intriguing props and dramatic reinterpretations to suit the times.