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It goes nearly without saying that Elizabethan England, the society that produced William Shakespeare, was dramatically different than the modern world of today. This is true not only in the most obvious ways-language, technology, living standards, politics-but in the ideas and beliefs that shaped Elizabethans'' understanding of themselves and the world around them. Just as audiences 400 years from now will need guidance to understand concepts like "the American dream" or "wokeness," so too does an understanding of the Elizabethan worldview illuminate Shakespeare''s plays in new and surprising ways. For decades, Dennis Krausnick (1942-2018), a beloved teacher of classical acting, brought Shakespeare''s world and worldview to life for professional actors as Director of Training at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts. As part of the company''s world-renowned actor-training program-its "Month-Long Intensive"-Dennis created a full-day immersive experience that helped actors experience, understand, and embody the philosophies and beliefs underlying the Elizabethan world. A fascinating and readable distillation of the insights developed by Krausnick and Shakespeare & Company, Shakespeare''s World gives an engagingly written tour of the Elizabethan worldview, unpacking such alien concepts as the four elements, the bodily humors, and "the great chain of being" for modern readers. Particularly useful for performers and directors-it includes detailed notes for each Shakespeare play showing how this worldview permeates the text-it will enrich the experience of anyone looking to understand and engage with Shakespeare''s writing in a practical, personal, and active way.
About the author
Dennis Krausnick was a founding member of Shakespeare & Company, based in Lenox, MA. For 25 years, he was its Director of Training. As a master teacher, he taught at countless theater companies and universities, including NYU, Boston University, MIT, Prague Shakespeare Company, and more. As an actor, Dennis’s favorite roles included King Lear, Polonius, and Capulet. He also staged many Shakespeare plays. Dennis passed away in 2018, having spent the last months of his life working on the vision and scope of this book, Shakespeare's World.Josh Lubarr is a writer and editor whose work includes plays and sketch comedy, expert congressional testimony, magazine articles, technical content, and much more. For decades, Josh has been acting, directing, and researching Shakespeare. He has worked on productions of over a dozen of the plays, including all the so-called “problem comedies.” His acting training includes work at Shakespeare & Company, where he also co-directed Hamlet as part of the inaugural Fall Festival of Shakespeare.Rebecca Goodheart, the Producing Artistic Director at Elm Shakespeare Company in New Haven, CT, has directed most of Shakespeare’s plays. An authority on the use of Shakespeare’s rhetoric in performance, she has presented her research at national conferences and theatrical workshops. Her scholarship has been published in the Journal of the Wooden O and Shakespeare Criticism Online. Rebecca both founded and was Producing Artistic Director for the Maryland Shakespeare Festival.
