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Shakespeare's pretty much the one playwright that you can study the human condition with.
And also where I can study it in conjunction with music and performing. I just think there's
something about his writing that captures so much of an array of human emotions and
there's some very simple stuff, some very beautiful poetry and I really like the way
it's all pulled together like that.
I looked all over the world for this particular programme because I was a teacher for a while
and I decided to return to graduate studies. And I looked in London and I looked at other
places, I looked in America and I found that I actually learned more through being immersed
in the plays of his birth. But also being in the land of where his language kind of
comes from.
It's just a great place to study Shakespeare because you're right in the heart of everything.
You've got the RSC just down the road because I'm a theatre-based researcher so I've got
an amazing archive there. We've got the archives over at the Birthplace or the RSC archives
and there's just so much stuff here, it's the centre of the Shakespeare academic universe
and you get to be right at the heart of it.
There's nowhere else that has the same type of archival materials, a closeknit community.
A place where if you need to find out something you can find out very very quickly and a place
where I really felt welcomed.
There's so much stuff going on, I was surprised by how much there actually is considering
it's tiny here. There's always part-time jobs going. There's always a film to see in the
evening or a play or meeting in the pub with your mates. There's always stuff that can
be done and it's just such a beautiful place to live.
I love the Shakespeare and Society. That was where we literally were in partnership with
the Birthplace and with Birmingham Libraries, Shakespeare library, with the RSC, mostly
supported by the RSC and we get to experience other resources but then put them into practice
in a pop-up theatre performance that we devise as a cohort in the RSC front of house space.
Not exactly an experience you get every day. And it was fantastic.
Everyone gets to use their own skills. So I've come from an acting and directing background.
We've got writers, musicians, designers and everyone can draw on their own skills that
the rest of us don't have and we end up creating this piece of theatre where we look back at
them and go 'We did that!'