Theatre for a New Audience and The New York Public Library Present American Shakespeare

Join scholars James Shapiro (author of The Year of Lear and editor of the anthology Shakespeare in America) and Ayanna Thompson (author of Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America) for a wide-ranging conversation on Shakespeare’s pervasive and perennial influence on American culture. From the revolutionary era through today, the questions and contradictions that animate America have found resonant expression in Shakespeare. Profs. Shapiro and Thompson will explore how the New World came to claim “the Man from Stratford,” and how his language has been re-discovered, by each generation, to articulate the comedies and tragedies, public and private, of American life.

William P. Kelly (Andrew W. Mellon Director of the Research Libraries of The New York Public Library) will introduce the evening and, before and after the talk, guests are invited to view a traveling exhibit of rare Shakespeare materials from the Library’s collections.

This is the second in a series of free events co-presented by The New York Public Library and Theatre for a New Audience: public dialogues between the Library’s Shakespeare collections and TFANA’s family of artists and scholars.

American Shakespeare
Monday, November 21, 6:30pm
Polonsky Shakespeare Center
262 Ashland Pl. 
Brooklyn, NY

Free event; registration in advance required.