Shakespeare and His First Folio
Exhibition at UMD in October
The exhibition is coming to the Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota, Duluth, October 3-26. UMD is Minnesota's host site for this exclusive exhibit. Plans to include NBS Shakespeare Production images are in the works (see below).
Shakespeare and His First Folio
Eighteen copies of the original 1623 edition will tour the nation as the exhibition Shakespeare and His First Folio. The exhibit will include an original copy of the First Folio as well as six didactic panels.
The first part of the exhibit is about the First Folio as an object: its history, cultural significance, and continued relevance. The second part is about Shakespeare's plays: a widely read set of texts, beloved for their timeless themes of our shared humanity. The displayed First Folio will be opened to the "to be or not to be" soliloquy from Shakespeare's Hamlet ---among the most famous and most quoted words ever written.
The six interpretive panels that are part of the exhibit will include content and images on the following topics:
1. What Is Shakespeare's First Folio? This panel explains what the First Folio is and helps to situate the book in its historic context, providing audiences with the tools to appreciate the book as an artifact. It also contextualizes the importance of this particular book, and offers a first look at the iconic cultural status the First Folio holds.
2. How Was the First Folio Printed? Visitors will come away with a basic understanding of book formats (history of the book), and an overview of how books were printed in the early seventeenth century. They will better understand the importance of being able to compare multiple copies of works produced on hand-presses, which created a certain fluidity in the printed text (mutable text).
Interpretive panels that travel with the exhibition
3. What Makes the First Folio so Important? This panel explains the importance of the First Folio as an object with iconic cultural status. The First Folio remains so valued because it preserves half of Shakespeare's canon, as well as one of his only authentic likenesses. We would not know Shakespeare as the most famous author in the English language if not for this book.
4. "To be or not to be": What Does It Mean? Visitors will learn the purpose of a soliloquy in a work of drama, and gain an understanding of the plot of Hamlet as well as the meaning of the "to be or not to be" speech.
5. How Many Hamlets Are There? How do we know the Hamlet that we know? The First Folio is important to us in part because it is considered the authoritative text for half of Shakespeare's plays, but its relationship with earlier versions of some of the plays--- including Hamlet---may never be fully known.
6. How America Knows Hamlet. Visitors will gain an understanding of the use of Hamlet in the American classroom, and learn about famous examples of and referencesto the speech in American literature and history.
Back side of panels
Productions of Shakespeare's Plays in Our Region
-Exhibit your design work!
The exhibition at the Tweed Museum of Art in Duluth will be comprised of a third part: This portion will include nationally recognized designs of both costumes and scenery for not only Shakespeare's play Hamlet, but other Shakespeare productions from our region.
Northern Boundary Section designers are invited to display their work for Shakespearean productions at the USITT NBS Fall Conference to be held at Hamline University, September 16 and 17. Plans are being made to document the work in this design exhibit and include it as part of the Shakespeare exhibit at UMD.
Additional information about the exhibit at UMD is HERE