Shakespeare Alive!: America's Foremost Theater Producer Brings Shakespeare's England to Life

by Joseph Papp, Elizabeth Kirkland (Editor)

From Joseph Papp, American's foremost theater  producer, and writer Elizabeth Kirkland: a captivating tour through the world of William Shakespeare.  Discover the London of Shakespeare's time, a fascinating place to be--full of mayhem and magic, exploration and exploitation, courtiers and foreigners. Stroll through narrow, winding streets crowded with merchants and minstrels, hoist a pint in a rowdy alehouse, and hurry across the river to the  open-air Globe Theater to see that latest play  written by a young man named Will Shakespeare.  Shakespeare Alive! spirits you back  to the very years of that London--as everyday  people might have experienced it. Find out how young  people fell in love, how workers and artists made  ends meet, what people found funny and what they feared most. Go on location with an Elizabethan theater company to learn how plays were produced, where Shakespeare's plots came from and how he transformed them. Hear the music of Shakespeare's language and words we still use today that were first spoken in his time. Open the book and elbow your way into the Globe with the groundlings. You'll be joining one of the most democratic audiences the theater has ever known--alewives, apprentices, shoemakers and nobles--in applauding the dazzling wordplay and swordplay brought to you by William Shakespeare.

Genres: Shakespeare, Nonfiction, History, Theatre, Drama, Teaching, School

240 pages, Mass Market Paperback

Published February 1, 1988

Reviews

[booklady]

Recommended by GRs friend, Steve as best book on Shakespeare if you like to watch his plays performed live.

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

As someone who is well read in all things Shakespeare, I still found some nuggets of new information in this text, which pleasantly surprised me. "Shakespeare Alive!" is an excellent introduction to Shakespeare the person, his plays, and his times.
Papp and Kirkland have mined Elizabethan sources to find numerous comments and writing about life in the period, and it is this section of the book that is its greatest strength. Shakespeare is more vibrant if students, or others, understand the period in which he lived and created. Everything is examined, from attitudes about foreigners, religion, and even family life. And everything is brought back to the plays and how Shakespeare was such a creature of his times, as are we all.
Another strength of the text is the examination of Shakespeare's sources and his use of language. It takes a part of Shakespeare that many find intimidating and illuminates it in a way that is easy to follow and understand. This leads the reader to an even greater appreciation of the Bard and his talents.
This book is a scholarly work, but it does not read like one. It reads like some very enthusiastic fans of Shakespeare wrote a 192 page research paper. That is a good thing. A perfect text for someone who has recently fallen under the spell of Shakespeare. It will help them to fall even harder.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you love Shakespeare, especially Shakespeare performed live, read this small gem of a book. Joseph Papp was a New York producer-director who started the New York Shakespeare Festival in 1954. Every Summer a slate of the Bard's plays were performed in New York City's Central Park. The tickets to the productions were free. Out of those productions came stage magic. The Festival, later renamed the Public Theater, served as the launching pad for the careers of many well known Actors and Actresses. The list is amazing. If you want find out who please read, "Free for All: Joe Papp, the Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told" by Kenneth Turan and Joseph Papp. "Shakespeare Alive!" gives you a peek at the England Shakespeare called home. It is an eye-opener. Elizabethan England was,for lack of a better word, a semi-police state. Forget "Shakespeare in Love", forget "BlackAdder Part 2", it was a time of religious trials and upheavals, a time of spies and rumors of invasion, it was the England that gave us a writer who spoke, and still speaks to us. Reader, before you begin the play,...read this book.

[Ally Restrepo · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, rounded down
this is a pretty decent guide to elizabethan life, benefited heavily by the fact that it forces you into the role of "elizabethan". it urges you to pretend that you are living there and experience what life would have been like. i think that this makes it much more accessible to read than most other academic texts, but i think that it fails in one major way: for a book titled shakespeare alive, it doesn't talk about shakespeare's life at all.
the book is separated into two parts: general life in the time of shakespeare, and theatre performance/writing in the time of shakespeare. however, it doesn't go into what drove shakespeare to write or how he fit into the social structures and dynamics the text describes. i think that giving readers that context would help to understand why his plays sound the way they do and why there is so many of them and how they would have been performed. there's some really interesting information about how the plays were written and how theatre functioned, but very little about shakespeare himself, which is disappointing.

[Timothy D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent and accessible introduction to the world that Shakespeare's plays were created into. Regardless of settings and plots etc every play and story is set in and about the world of its actual creation. Getting a boots on the ground, mundane, everyday perspective of Elizabethan England and what was going on illuminates these plays and sonnets. If you have already studied the period or done and real research into these plays; then is may not be the read for you. If, however, you have only read what you were assigned to read or (let's be honest) only read the cliff notes or Shakespeare for dummies or some other one stop version of the works and never looked into what was behind, beside or inspired these works, then this is a great place to start.

[Fraser Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is two sections: life in Elizabethan England followed by a look at the theater world, first in Shakespeare's day then the Bard's success in later centuries. Some of it I knew but a lot I didn't. Overall I found it engaging.

[David Cohen · Rating 5 out of 5]

great insights from a perspective that is both scholarly and theatrical - as the title suggests, the book helps bring Shakespeare alive, and keeps the works alive for future generations.

[Megan Lohne · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully detailed account of Elizabethan England as it relates to lines and moments in Shakespeare’s plays. Illuminating and easily digestible, highly recommend.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read for curriculum review project.

[Rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you want to understand Shakespeare and his times, you will find no better book than this one to get you started. This was assigned for my Shakespeare class in high school twenty-*cough* years ago and it left a significant impression on me. I still own my copy of this book.

[Jenna May · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am all for "accessible" Shakespeare, but I found this book remarkably tedious, supremely dull, and dumbed-down. I expect, however, that my experience of the text has something to do with not being of the proper age to enjoy it. I think that perhaps this book would be entertaining and useful to pre-teens or young teenagers, especially those with no knowledge of Shakespeare or Elizabethan England. If, however, you have any basic knowledge of Early Modern culture and/or Shakespeare, I would suggest passing this by.

[Carmel Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an assigned book for next year's literature course, so as to understand more fully the world of Shakespeare while reading some of his work. I really quite enjoyed learning all about the 16/17th centuries through the world of the stage, though there was a bit of a Liberal worldview. (Not to mention near the end the author practically worships the shrine of Shakespeare...). Overall, a good informative read. 3 stars.

[Maya EVHS Gonzalez Paredes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Explains the time period in which the iconic playwrite, William Shakespeare lived. It puts you in the shoes of someone with his status and gives you back ground information about how it was to live in that time period politically, spiritually, transportation wise, and more.

[Grace Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this book would be super boring but it's actually written in a way that makes it easy to understand and it's not the worst, actually pretty interesting. I liked that they used a fictional style of writing to share non fiction information.

[Taylor Siwek · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another book for English..

[Stacy · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting book, that explains how life was like in Shakespearean times.

[Penney Kolb · Rating 2 out of 5]

review of Shakespeare's world - a very quick read.

[Jennifer Delamere · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, easy to read, and loaded with interesting details about life in Elizabethan England. I especially love the quotes from Shakespeare's plays that illustrate the point or detail discussed.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really breaks Shakepeare down to modern day scenerios and explanations that anyone from Middle schoolers thru adults can relate to.