The Royal Shakespeare Company is to host in Stratford a series of events celebrating Ovid—Shakespeare’s “favourite poet”.
The company says no other Greek or Roman classic has influenced European art—including Shakespeare—more than Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Ovid’s work tells of love, violence and transformation.
The RSC will stage events for all ages across three weeks in October 2017, starting with In conversation: Ovid and Shakespeare. RSC artistic director Gregory Doran, Guardian journalist Charlotte Higgins and historian Michael Wood will explore Ovid’s modern relevance and his influence on Shakespeare’s writing. It will be held on Sunday 8 October at 2:30PM.
On the same day at 4PM, Doran will chose a selection of Ted Hughes’s retelling of Metamorphoses in Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes. RSC actors past and present will perform the readings.
There will be staged readings of three new plays for 8- to 11-year-olds, Three Tales from Ovid, retold by Amber Hsu and featuring characters who appear throughout Shakespeare’s plays, on Tuesday and Thursday, 10 and 12 October, at 10:30AM and 1:30PM.
A “battle of words and wit” will be held on Thursday 12 October at 7:30PM when three of the UK’s leading slam poets challenge Ovid, Horace and Virgil in three-minute performances in front of a panel of judges in Dead or Alive Poetry Slam.
Playwright Brad Birch will stage a rehearsed reading of The Metamorphoses on Tuesday 24 October at 7:30PM while storytellers Daniel Morden and Hugh Lupton will retell some of Ovid’s stories including Arachne, Orpheus in the Underworld, The Death of Adonis and Baucis and Philemon on Friday 27 October at 7:30PM.
The full programme is available at the RSC web site.