Shakespeare Teacher Pack & School Sponsorship | Immortal Longings

During the school year, we often have teachers contact us about school projects and aides for teaching Shakespeare in the classroom. 

We're passionate about making art that is accessible, and we know how artwork can stir the imagination and inspire:  so we're putting together a special 'Shakespeare Teachers' Pack' that helps visualize the plays and inspire craft work.  

Sets include Calendars, Cards, Prints, paper for decorating bulletin boards and more.  Each student will have their own piece of the Bard to remember their studies. We'll also add your school's name and if you're performing a play, we'll list the production on our website.

The packs are inexpensive, and can help a teacher on any budget.  If you're a school with special community interest, please let us know and we can look at providing sponsorship for your education pack.

If you can start us of with the following information, it will help us make a great Teachers' Pack for you- 

Name of School:

Name of Teacher:

City:

State:

Country:

Approximate class/cast size:

What Shakespeare Plays are you teaching and/or performing:

Link to School Website:

Please get in touch for more information

If you have a Shakespeare Event for charity, or for community benefit, we'd also love to hear it, too!

World Shakespeare Festival Film released: Olympian Shakespeare?

The Olympics Website have released a World Shakespeare Festival film:

Meera Syal: 
Be not afeard; the isle is full of noises,
Sounds, and sweet airs,

Simon Russell Beale:
That give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears;

Ade Adepitan: And sometime voices
That, if I then had waked after long sleep,

Adjoa Andoh:Will make me sleep again; and then in dreaming,

Jonathan Edwards:The clouds me thought would open, and show riches

Will Sharman: Ready to drop upon me,

Ray Fearon: That when I waked
I cried to dream again.'

Shakespeare's Birthday - secret London photo shoot!

To celebrate the great Bard's birthday (yesterday!) Immortal Longings teamed up with photographer Theo Albanis and stylist Anami Tara Shucart. Shooting exclusively in south-east London for a true urban feel the team braved sun, wind and rain to create 5 modern Shakespeare character interpretations.

A few teasing behind-the-scenes shots before the photographs are released...

So with enough hints there about the 5 characters, can you guess which they are? (Hint: they're all featured in Folio prints in different colours.)

For Your Shakespearean Listening Pleasure: William Shakespeare's Playlist

Now on the BBC Player:

David Owen Norris and guests compile a playlist for the bard. Choosing Shakespeare's favourite songs are the renowned Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells, RSC director Greg Doran and musician Lucie Skeaping.

The music ranges from a lullaby Shakespeare's mother Mary Arden might have sung him, through bawdy ballads from the local tavern, to haunting songs written by Shakespeare himself. What do they tell us about our most enigmatic genius?

The programme is recorded at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, a wooden recreation of a Shakespearean playhouse.

With singers Gwyneth Herbert and Thomas Guthrie, and a trumpeter from Shakespeare's old school to test the theatre acoustics with some rousing fanfares.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

Wrap it up Shakespeare style!

Here at Immortal Longings I'm having a bit of a clear-out. Making space for new products coming soon! So here's a perfect chance to stock up on Hamlet or Merry wrapping paper, being auctioned on eBay now.

Click for Merry wrap auction

Click for Hamlet wrap auction

An illustrator's studio

A peek inside the studio... art materials and old-time inspirations. The surroundings for creating Shakespeare illustrations.

Wednesday Walk with Shakespeare

City walk: old London wall (Photo credit: tina-m)

Ah, when I was just a youth of 23 I visited London for the first time at Christmas, eager to scout out Shakespeare things!

It was 1993 and back then London still closed down almost completely at Christmas. So I soon discovered three of the only things to do!

First - St Paul's cathedral was open for Christmas service. Though not religious I went with a fellow traveller to mass and it was beautiful, complete with splendid boys choir.

Second - I realised roasted chestnut sellers were still out with their carts along the riverside. I tasted my first-ever roasted chestnuts by Tower Bridge.

Third - I discovered London Walks and went on several tours that week. Shakespeare and Dickens was the best! They took us to see all the bits of Elizabethan architecture still left in London - some of which were just a few timbers in a hidden archway. It was a really good walk, and they still run the same tour to this day.

So one of my top recommendations for visitors to London: treat yourself to a mid-week walk.

Shakespeare and Dicken's London - The Old City - walk tour by London Walks
(ps. the Jack the Ripper walk is good too!)

--Post by Tina, the Shakespearean minion

Modern Fools!

"Shakespearean fools: Their modern equivalents" from BBC News:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17476117

Homer Simpson, Miranda Heart, Frank Gallagher and Ian Hislop as Shakespearean fool descendants?