Comedian and musiclan Tim Minchin, songwriter for the RSC's Matilda that won a record number of Oliver Awards on Sunday, and rapper, poet and playwright Kate Tempest have launched the RSC's latest web-based resource under the banner of the World Shakespeare Festival.
The RSC is describing myShakespeare as a "new social networking platform", but it utilises three existing web platforms to provide its services: social network Twitter, photo and video sharing site Flickr and e-commerce site eBay. Artists from around the world have been commissioned to create new work for the site and others are invited to join in the conversation about how Shakespeare's creations continue to have meaning and relevance in our daily lives.
On an introductory video that includes pictures of him performing in Shakespeare plays in his younger days, Minchin says, "Saying Shakespeare was a good writer is like saying space is big. We all know he was special, but it’s hard to get your head around what makes a 16th century poet stay famous for 400 years. The Royal Shakespeare Company has produced this festival to celebrate the incredibly diverse ways in which Will’s work still lives, and—more importantly—to encourage you guys to get in amongst it."
The first commissioned piece is from Tempest with her poem "My Shakespeare", which you can see her perform on video on the site. Other artists who will be providing work between now and November include Tom Uglow with Google Creative Labs, Asian digital artist Aaajiao, American playwright and performer Will Power, artist and writer Tim Etchells with Forced Entertainment, students from Central St Martins art college, artist Brendan Dawes and African artist Emma Wolukau-Wanambwa.
RSC artistic director Michael Boyd said, "The theatre programme for the World Shakespeare Festival, produced by the Royal Shakespeare Company, is the biggest enquiry ever into what Shakespeare says to us today and how artists and audiences around the world respond to his work in the 21st century. With myShakespeare, we are asking the same questions in a new experimental online space. Half the world studies Shakespeare at school, and no other world artist can claim to be a common cultural reference point in the same way."
There will be blogs from a wide range of contributors (look at the How To Take Part section for information on how to become a contributor) and the Banquo "data visualisation" engine collects Shakespeare-related information from Twitter, Flickr and eBay and turns it into graphs and animations.
myShakespeare became live on 17 April, but the WSF is officially launched on 23 April, when Shakespeare birthday is usually celebrated, and will continue until November.