Working Shakespeare - Season 1 Backdrop Blur
Working Shakespeare - Season 1 Poster
NR 1 Seasons • 5 Episodes

Working Shakespeare - Season 1

How do we enter the heightened, extravagant language of Shakespeare and yet feel truthful in our contemporary world? How do performers excite the audience with Shakespeare's rich imagery and dynamic rhythm, yet make it real for the twenty-first century? We assume that a sophisticated intellectual background is required to grapple with Shakespeare. But there is a much deeper, almost primal response as available to inner-city students as to their counterparts in the private school to the sound and rhythm in Shakespeare's language which arouses our emotions: feelings of anger and sorrow, of passion and laughter. This landmark five-part video series gives voice to Shakespeare's most beloved and widely known speeches and sonnets, performed by a powerhouse ensemble of American and British actors, as they delve into the structure, meaning and power of Shakespeare's language.

Top Cast

  • Kate Burton

    Kate Burton

  • Claire Danes

    Claire Danes

  • Blythe Danner

    Blythe Danner

  • Lindsay Duncan

    Lindsay Duncan

  • Victor Garber

    Victor Garber

  • Samuel L. Jackson

    Samuel L. Jackson

  • Helen Hunt

    Helen Hunt

  • Robert Sean Leonard

    Robert Sean Leonard

  • Toby Stephens

    Toby Stephens

Overview

How do we enter the heightened, extravagant language of Shakespeare and yet feel truthful in our contemporary world? How do performers excite the audience with Shakespeare's rich imagery and dynamic rhythm, yet make it real for the twenty-first century? We assume that a sophisticated intellectual background is required to grapple with Shakespeare. But there is a much deeper, almost primal response as available to inner-city students as to their counterparts in the private school to the sound and rhythm in Shakespeare's language which arouses our emotions: feelings of anger and sorrow, of passion and laughter. This landmark five-part video series gives voice to Shakespeare's most beloved and widely known speeches and sonnets, performed by a powerhouse ensemble of American and British actors, as they delve into the structure, meaning and power of Shakespeare's language.

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Biography

Biography is a documentary television series. It was originally a half-hour filmed series produced for CBS by David Wolper from 1961 to 1964 and hosted by Mike Wallace. The A&E Network later re-ran it and has produced new episodes since 1987. The older version featured historical figures such as Helen Keller and Mark Twain, or long-dead entertainment figures such as Will Rogers or John Barrymore. The A&E series has placed the emphasis on such people as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Plácido Domingo, Freddie Mercury, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Eric Clapton, Pope John Paul II, Gene Tierney, Selena, Diego Rivera, Mao Zedong and Queen Elizabeth II, and fictional characters like The Phantom, Superman, Hamlet, Betty Boop, and Santa Claus. The program ended up profiling enough figures that in 1999, A&E spun it off into an entire network, The Biography Channel.

Biography

6.7 1987