Archives Jan/June 2014

4th June 2014

Michael will be appearing with Juliet Stevenson at the Ledbury Poetry Festival on the 8th July in an evening entitled The Hundreds’ Years War. You can find full details on the following link:

http://www.poetry-festival.co.uk/event/the-hundred-years-war-with-juliet-stevenson-and-michael-pennington/

23rd May 2014

During the run of King  Lear Michael had a conversation with Ian McKellen about acting, Shakespeare and King Lear. Click on the following link to watch the interview:

http://www.broadwayworld.com/article/STAGE-TUBE-Ian-McKellen-and-Michael-Pennington-Talk-TFANAs-KING-LEAR-Shakespeare-and-More-20140522#.U38ejflP6RM

23rd March 2014

The DVD/Blu-ray of Richard II will be released on Tuesday 6th May. The DVD extras include a commentary by Greg Doran, while the Blu-ray has an interview with David Tennant.

12th March 2014

Here’s a couple of links to watch Michael talking about the current production of King Lear:

http://bkindiemedia.bricartsmedia.org/bk-live-22514-theatre-for-a-new-audiences-king-lear-segment/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8y-1eG985c

7th March 2014

Michael will be involved in the following: Shakespeare Summer School in Urbino, Italy. July 12th – 26th 2014. He will be directing a session on Romeo and Juliet. Full details can be found at the following:

http://www.shakespeareinitaly.eu/summer-school/

3rd March 2014

Unfortunately, Michael didn’t win Best Actor category which went to Jamie Samuel.

16th February 2014

Michael has received a nomination for Best Actor in the 2013 Off West End Theatre Awards for his role as Edgar in Dances of Death. Winners will be announced on March 2nd in a ceremony held at the Unicorn Theatre.

January 2014

Michael has now finished playing John of Gaunt for the RSC and is now preparing for King Lear in New York.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X8y-1eG985c

http://bkindiemedia.bricartsmedia.org/bk-live-22514-theatre-for-a-new-audiences-king-lear-segment/

Greetings!

I've been really happy to be back in Stratford and now the Barbican with the RSC in Richard II, and now I’m off to New York to have a shot at King Lear at last. Jeffrey Horowitz’s terrific company Theatre for a New Audience have built a brand new and very beautiful theatre in Brooklyn, which they’ve just opened with Julie Taymor's production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM, and LEAR is the second show in, playing March 14th to May 4th. Jeffrey and Arin Arbus his brilliant young director (who'll be doing LEAR) and I have been cooking this up for two or three years now, ever since I was there with Peter Brook's LOVE IS MY SIN, so I'm really pleased about it. We have an all-American cast and team apart from me of course, but when it comes to Shakespeare we’re all in exactly the same boat.

And that’s as far as I’m looking at the moment. But the DVD of my solo show Sweet William is selling well at the National Theatre and RSC bookshops, at the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust Bookshop in Stratford, and also on Amazon. And I've also revised my book for Faber about the actor’s life, called LET ME PLAY THE LION TOO: books take time and we have a publication date of January 15th 2015. Meanwhile my book SWEET WILLIAM - TWENTY THOUSAND HOURS WITH SHAKESPEARE is out in paperback under a slightly new title, SWEET WILLIAM – A USER’S GUIDE TO SHAKESPEARE.

Michael Pennington

January 2014