Shakespeare Globe

Special Events

Activities 10 and 11 April

Swords and Swordplay Watch exciting live demonstrations of Elizabethan swordplay and stage combat, as current drama students receive detailed instruction in the skills of using the two-hand sword, rapier and dagger, and broadsword, guided by experienced professional fight director Philip Stafford.

Elizabethan Dressing Using clothes from the Globe Theatre wardrobe, we’ll explain the intricacies of dressing and the significance of clothing in Elizabethan society. Do you know the origin of the phrases 'straight-laced', 'loose women' or 'pin money'? And what did Shakespeare’s contemporaries use as a stain remover? Find out as we dress you as a character from a Shakespeare play.

Green Woodworking Recalling some of the authentic techniques used to reconstruct the Globe Theatre, we’ll be demonstrating the basic tools and techniques of green woodwork. Starting with recently felled trees from the Woodland Trust’s forests in London, see how the wood is cleaved with an axe and shaped before being turned on a pole-lathe into beautiful decorative shapes.

Printing Demonstrations Hardly anything written in Shakespeare’s hand survives today: we have his plays and poems only because they were printed as books. Using a full-size recreation of a 17th-century printing press, we’ll show you the amazingly sophisticated methods behind making books. Discover the remarkable and precarious journey of playwrights’ words from the stage to the page.

Activities also scheduled for:
8-9 May
12-13 June
10-11 July
14-15 August
11-12 September
9-10 October
13-14 November
11-12 December

Shakespeare Connections

Wood Engravings by June Crisfield Chapman

An extensive selection of wood engravings by the artist June Crisfield Chapman is on show in the Exhibition until early April 2010.

June studied wood engraving at the Glasgow School of Art, during which time she became fascinated by theatre. Her wood engravings are taken from literary themes or theatre characterisations, including characters from Shakespeare, Chaucer, Commedia dell-arte and Ancient Greek plays. She has exhibited her wood engravings in one-woman shows, including the Glasgow City Gallery at Kelvingrove, the Walter Rothschild Museum (part of Natural History Museum, London), and the Royal Botanic Garden Gallery, Edinburgh. Her work is also in public collections such as the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge.

Alongside the engravings, there is an opportunity to see the tools and boxwood blocks which June uses to achieve her dramatic images.

All the prints on display are available to purchase. For more information:
E-mail: exhibition@shakespearesglobe.com

Previous Exhibitions

Previous temporary exhibitions have included: An Eye on the Globe, paintings and drawings of the Globe's construction by June Everett (2007); The Edges of Rome (2006); Shakespeare and the Gunpowder Plot, in partnership with The National Archives and the Metropolitan Police (2005); Shakespeare and Love (2004); Shakespeare's Rivals, including many documents from the collection of Dulwich College (2003); The Men Who Built The Globe, pastel and charcoal drawings by Anne Payton (2002); a Japanese Washi collection by Kyoko Nakanishi featuring Shakespearean playing spaces and characters (2001); and a set of Zen representations of the Globe by Toshihiro Hamano (2001).

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