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108-849: The Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City was founded in 1977 as a professional ( AEA ) theatre company on the Upper West Side of New York City, by W. Stuart McDowell and Gloria Skurski. Focusing on Shakespeare plays and other classical repertoire, it operated until 1997. Founded with a core of graduates from the University of California at Berkeley , the Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City opened its first production, Romeo and Juliet , in August 1977 in Riverside Park . It then commenced

216-476: A First Folio. It had been donated to the museum in 1936 by a local mill owner. This copy is missing its introductory pages and all the comedies. On 13 July 2006, a complete copy of the First Folio owned by Dr Williams's Library was auctioned at Sotheby's auction house. The book, which was in its original 17th-century binding, sold for £2,808,000, less than Sotheby's top estimate of £3.5 million. This copy

324-654: A binding. These editions were primarily intended to be cheap and convenient, and read until worn out or repurposed as wrapping paper (or worse), rather than high quality objects kept in a library. Customers who wanted to keep a particular play would have to have it bound, and would typically bind several related or miscellany plays into one volume. Octavos, though nominally cheaper to produce, were somewhat different. From c.  1595–96 ( Venus and Adonis ) and 1598 ( The Rape of Lucrece ), Shakespeare's narrative poems were published in octavo. In The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's First Folio , Tara L. Lyons argues that this

432-416: A booklet-like quire or gathering of 6 leaves, 12 pages. Once printed, the "sixes" were assembled and bound together to make the book. The sheets were printed in 2-page formes, meaning that pages 1 and 12 of the first quire were printed simultaneously on one side of one sheet of paper (which became the "outer" side); then pages 2 and 11 were printed on the other side of the same sheet (the "inner" side). The same

540-630: A business partner of another Jaggard, William's brother John. The printing of the Folio was probably done between February 1622 and early November 1623, and the book was entered into the Stationers' Register on 8 November 1623 ( Julian calendar ). It is possible that the printer originally expected to have the book ready early, since it was listed in the Frankfurt Book Fair catalogue as a book to appear between April and October 1622, but

648-586: A conjectured £3.5 million from the sale of its First Folio to Sir Paul Getty in 2003. To commemorate the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death in 2016, the Folger Shakespeare Library toured some of its 82 First Folios for display in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. In 2003, Anthony West identified a book previously thought to be a Second Folio in the collection of Craven Museum in Skipton, North Yorkshire, to be

756-618: A free parks tour through Manhattan, performing in Washington Square , John Jay Park , Fort Tryon Park , and Columbia University . The production was directed by McDowell. An opening-night announcement in The New York Times read: The Riverside Shakespeare Company is taking up where Joseph Papp left off this summer by presenting free Shakespeare in the park. ... The production will be done in traveling minstrel style, evocative of Shakespeare's time. Beforehand, to set

864-688: A live orchestra. For this production, the company built a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater outdoors, surrounded by trees on the southeast corner of the Columbia University Quad; the production was directed by W. Stuart McDowell and performed at night without microphones in this perfect acoustic environment, on a set designed and built by Dorian Vernacchio, costumes by Kenneth M. Yount, fight choreography for broadsword, halberd, dagger and mace, by Joel Leffert. The reviewer of Show Business , Ted Bank, noted that: Riverside Shakespeare Company has injected this chronicle history with all

972-514: A major role in the recognition of the impact the AIDS epidemic on the world of theater, co-founding Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS . In 2021, Actor's Equity introduced an "Open Access" membership policy, whereby "any theatre worker who can demonstrate they have worked professionally as an actor or stage manager within Equity's geographical jurisdiction" may join the union. This opened eligibility to

1080-568: A member of one of Equity's sister performing arts unions, the "Four A's": SAG-AFTRA , AGMA , AGVA or GIAA . Such applicants must have been a member of said sister union for at least one year, be a member in good standing of that union, have worked as a performer under the union's jurisdiction on a principal or "under-five" contract or at least three days of extra ("background") work, and must have completed non-union theatrical work. The AEA has several different types of contract, with different rules associated with them. Each contract type deals with

1188-441: A month before the book went on sale; most of the work in the project must have been done by his son Isaac. The First Folio's publishing syndicate also included two stationers who owned the rights to some of the individual plays that had been previously printed: William Aspley ( Much Ado About Nothing and Henry IV, Part 2 ) and John Smethwick ( Love's Labour's Lost , Romeo and Juliet , and Hamlet ). Smethwick had been

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1296-631: A more organized equality strike. Starting on June 5, 1929, Gillmore attended several meetings in New York with the heads of Broadway. After the meeting, he notified the AEA that appearances in sound and talking motion pictures had been suspended until the outcome of the meetings with the international Studio Crafts Union. Due to the negotiations and the suspension of contracts through the AEA, studios were desperate for actors to speed up production, which had dropped significantly. The New York Times wrote, "It

1404-567: A preface to the folio with this poem addressed "To the Reader" facing the Droeshout portrait engraving: This Figure, that thou here ſeeſt put,    It vvas for gentle Shakeſpeare cut; Wherein the Grauer had a ſtrife    vvith Nature, to out-doo the life : O, could he but haue dravvne his vvit    As vvell in braſſe, as he hath hit His face;

1512-567: A previously unrecorded copy once owned by 19th-century collector Sir George Augustus Shuckburgh-Evelyn would be auctioned on 25 May 2016. According to the Antiques Trade Gazette , an American collector paid £1,600,000 for it; the buyer also successfully bid on copies of the second, third, and fourth folios. In April 2016 another new discovery was announced, a First Folio having been found in Mount Stuart House on

1620-541: A series of free performances of Shakespeare plays and scenes across town at the Citicorp Center, entitled Riverside Shakespeare Salutes Shakespeare at Citicorp , which included The Taming of the Shrew directed by Jere O'Donnell, Love's Labour's Lost directed by Timothy Minor, The Will to Power: Scenes of Ambition and Political Intrigue , directed by Ken Grantham, and a popular compilation of romantic scenes from

1728-488: A smaller typeface) or abbreviating the text. [Publish me in] the Smallest size, Least I bee eaten vnder Pippin-pyes. Or in th’ Apothicaryes shop bee seene To wrap Drugg's: or to dry Tobacco in. First (might I chuse) I would be bound to wipe, Where he discharged last his Glister-pipe. Editions of individual plays were typically published in quarto and could be bought for 6 d (equivalent to £6 in 2023) without

1836-421: A source for a printed text. The label Q n denotes the n  th quarto edition of a play. Troilus and Cressida was originally intended to follow Romeo and Juliet , but the typesetting was stopped, probably due to a conflict over the rights to the play; it was later inserted as the first of the tragedies, when the rights question was resolved. It does not appear in the table of contents. Ben Jonson wrote

1944-453: A specific type of theater venue or production type. These include, but are not limited to: Council of Resident Stock Theatres (CORST), Guest Artist, Letters of Agreement (LoA), League of Resident Theatres (LoRT) Small Professional Theatres (SPT), and Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA). AEA actors and stage managers are not allowed to work in non-Equity houses or on any productions in which an Equity Agreement has not been signed anywhere within

2052-472: A stone's throw from the Hudson River. A core company of twelve to fifteen professional actors were often complemented with Columbia University students both backstage and onstage as performers, working as student apprentices within the company, not unlike Shakespeare's company 400 years before. In 1979 the Riverside Shakespeare Company mounted Niccolo Machiavelli's Renaissance farce, The Mandrake , in

2160-443: A studio would put out worldwide. On July 20, 1929, the AEA gained its first victory, which gave producers and actors a leg to stand on in their battle for equality. Over 30 days (up to August 20, 1929), Gillmore fought to give the AEA the ability to represent all actors, producers, radio personality, vaudeville performers, and agents in the country. This would also give all power and representation to one organization in order to create

2268-465: A superseded edition when the Third Folio became available in 1663/1664). The 36 plays of the First Folio occur in the order given below; plays that had never been published before 1623 are marked with an asterisk. Each play is followed by the type of source used, as determined by bibliographical research. The term foul papers refers to Shakespeare's working drafts of a play. When completed,

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2376-410: A transcript or fair copy of the foul papers would be prepared, by the author or by a scribe. Such a manuscript would have to be heavily annotated with accurate and detailed stage directions and all the other data needed for performance, and then could serve as a prompt book , to be used by the prompter to guide a performance of the play. Any of these manuscripts, in any combination, could be used as

2484-505: Is one of only about 40 remaining complete copies (most of the existing copies are incomplete); only one other copy of the book remains in private ownership. On 11 July 2008, it was reported that a copy stolen from Durham University , England, in 1998 had been recovered after being submitted for valuation at the Folger Shakespeare Library. News reports estimated the folio's value at anywhere from £250,000 in total for

2592-604: The Church of the Holy Trinity two days later. Shakespeare's works—both poetic and dramatic—had a rich history in print before the publication of the First Folio: from the first publications of Venus and Adonis (1593) and The Rape of Lucrece (1594), 78 individual printed editions of his works are known. Of these, 23 are his poetry and the remaining 55 his plays. Counting by number of editions published before 1623,

2700-536: The Heights/Inwood Press of North Manhattan : The music composed for the play had a Brechtian feel to it, enriching the play and setting the mood of high jinks and fun. Also, the fanciful costumes, works of art in themselves, with their overblown appliqued ornamentation, were a delightful asset to the production. The production of The Mandrake opened on March 2, 1979 at the Casa Italiana, and

2808-529: The Hollywood blacklist , the AEA refused to participate. Although its constitution guaranteed its members the right to refuse to work alongside Communists , or a member of a Communist front organization, the AEA did not ban any members. At a 1997 ceremony commemorating the blacklist's 50th anniversary, Richard Masur , then president of the Screen Actors Guild, apologized for its participation in

2916-600: The National Library of Chile , in Santiago . The First Folio is one of the most valuable printed books in the world: a copy sold at Christie's in New York in October 2001 made $ 6.16 million hammer price (then £3.73m). In October 2020, a copy sold by Mills College at Christie's fetched a price of $ 10 million, making it the most expensive work of literature ever auctioned. Oriel College, Oxford , raised

3024-757: The New York Public Library (6) in New York City , and the British Library (5) in London . The Folger collection alone accounts for more than one third of all known surviving copies. Together, the nine largest First Folio collections comprise more than half of all known extant copies. Thirty-one American colleges and universities own a total of thirty-eight copies of the First Folio, while seven British universities own fourteen copies. Universities in possession of multiple copies include

3132-420: The University of Cambridge (4), the University of Oxford (4), the University of Texas at Austin (3), Princeton University (3), Brown University (2), Harvard University (2), the University of London (2), Yale University (1) and Carnegie Mellon University (2). Three are also in the possession of the University of California system, with one each at UC Berkeley , UCLA , and UC Irvine . In Canada,

3240-515: The University of Nevada, Reno , one of the world's foremost authorities on Shakespeare. The title page and introductory material are missing. The name "Neville", written on the first surviving page, may indicate that it once belonged to Edward Scarisbrick , who fled England due to anti-Catholic repression , attended the Jesuit Saint-Omer College , and was known to use that alias. In March 2016, Christie's announced that

3348-691: The University of Toronto 's Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library owns one copy and the University of British Columbia another. Ireland's only copy resides in the Old Library at Trinity College Dublin . A number of copies are held by public libraries. In the United States, the New York Public Library owns six copies. The Boston Public Library , Free Library of Philadelphia (a copy previously owned by John Milton and containing notes in his handwriting), Dallas Public Library , and Buffalo & Erie County Public Library each hold one copy. In

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3456-461: The AEA's jurisdiction. [REDACTED] Media related to Actors' Equity Association at Wikimedia Commons First Folio Mr. William Shakespeare's Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies is a collection of plays by William Shakespeare , commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio , published in 1623, about seven years after Shakespeare's death. It is considered one of

3564-551: The Actors' and Producers' strike of 1929, Hollywood and California in general had a series of workers' equality battles that directly influenced the film industry. The films The Passaic Textile Strike (1926), The Miners' Strike (1928) and The Gastonia Textile Strike (1929) gave audience and producers insight into the effect and accomplishments of labor unions and striking. These films were set apart by being current documentaries, not merely melodramas produced for glamor. In 1896,

3672-799: The Bard, This Bud of Love: Scenes of Awakening Love , directed by John Clingerman. These were also broadcast on New York's public radio station, WBAI . Meanwhile at The Shakespeare Center , the company opened its next season with Henry V directed by Timothy Oman, assisted by Linda Mason, associate director, and Maureen Clarke, Riverside's resident text coach, with music by Sanchie Borrow, scenic and lighting design by Norbert U. Kolb, fight direction by Conal O'Brien, and costumes by David Pearson, featuring Frank Muller and Lee Croghan, with Dene Nardi, Dan Daily, Norma Fire, Ronald Lew Harris, Pat Kennerly, Gay Reed, Gene Santarelli, Sandi Shackelford, and Time Winters. Actors%27 Equity Association Leading up to

3780-554: The First Folio and all the other books and manuscripts stolen ( BBC News , 1998), up to $ 30 million ( The New York Times , 2008). Although the book, once the property of John Cosin the Bishop of Durham , was returned to the library, it had been mutilated and was missing its cover and title page. The folio was returned to public display on 19 June 2010 after its twelve-year absence. Fifty-three-year-old Raymond Scott received an eight-year prison sentence for handling stolen goods , but

3888-437: The First Folio is arguably the only reliable text for about 20 of the plays, and a valuable source text for many of those previously published. Eighteen of the plays in the First Folio, including The Tempest , Twelfth Night , Macbeth , Julius Caesar and Measure for Measure among others, are not known to have been previously printed. The Folio includes all of the plays generally accepted to be Shakespeare's, except

3996-486: The First Folio texts were set into type by five compositors , with different spelling habits, peculiarities, and levels of competence. Researchers have labelled them A through E, A being the most accurate, and E an apprentice who had significant difficulties in dealing with manuscript copy. Their shares in typesetting the pages of the Folio break down like this: Compositor "E" was most likely one John Leason, whose apprenticeship contract dated only from 4 November 1622. One of

4104-679: The First Folio. Knight is known to have been responsible for maintaining and annotating the company's scripts, and making sure that the company complied with cuts and changes ordered by the Master of the Revels . Some pages of the First Folio—134 out of the total of 900—were proofread and corrected while the job of printing the book was ongoing. As a result, the Folio differs from modern books in that individual copies vary considerably in their typographical errors. There were about 500 corrections made to

4212-478: The Folio in this way. These corrections by the typesetters, however, consisted only of simple typos, clear mistakes in their own work; the evidence suggests that they almost never referred back to their manuscript sources, let alone tried to resolve any problems in those sources. The well-known cruxes in the First Folio texts were beyond the typesetters' capacity to correct. The Folio was typeset and bound in "sixes"—3 sheets of paper, taken together, were folded into

4320-533: The Nurse, Scottish folk singer and comedian Fredi Dundee. Romeo & Juliet was followed by Love's Labour's Lost with Freda Kavanagh, Deanna Deignan, Kay Colburn and Catherine Schmidt, and J. C. Hoyt, Timothy Doyle, Timothy Oman, Madeleine Potter , and Peter Siiteri, directed by Clingerman with music by Deborah Awner, which Mel Gussow of the New York Times called "a charming chamber piece." This

4428-577: The Print vvould then ſurpaſſe    All, that vvas euer vvrit in braſſe. But, ſince he cannot, Reader, looke    Not on his Picture, but his Booke.                                               B. I. As far as modern scholarship has been able to determine,

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4536-739: The Riverside Shakespeare Company presented a free 'Equity library tour' of Twelfth Night , directed by Gloria Skurski, with music by Michael Moore, which then had an extended run Off Broadway at the Manhattan Theatre Club Stage 73. Judy Thrall, in the Heights/Inwood Press of North Manhattan reviewed the production of Twelfth Night : Some theatre companies – those which start out with talented and intelligent actors – are born great. Some companies – those which start out with diffident, inexperienced people who soon mature with their art – achieve greatness. And some companies – those which start out untrained and unguided – can, with

4644-624: The Riverside Shakespeare Company was officially dedicated in the fall of 1982 by Joseph Papp and Helen Hayes in a ceremony attended by Gloria Foster , Milo O'Shea , Barnard Hughes , Sam Waterston , Mildred Natwick , and Peter Brook . The Shakespeare Center became the home for numerous Equity Riverside productions, beginning with Romeo and Juliet in 1980, directed by W. Stuart McDowell, assisted by Jay King, with Robert Walsh, Arleigh Richards, George House, Barbara Tirrell, Joe Meek, Gay Reed, Curtis Watkins, Dan Johnson, Obie Story, James McGuire, Jim Maxson, Christopher Cull, Timothy Oman, and, as

4752-897: The UK, the Library of Birmingham owns one copy. Additional copies are owned by the Huntington Library (4), The Shakespeare Centre (3), the Victoria and Albert Museum (3), Sutro Library (2), the Morgan Library and Museum (2), Newberry Library , Fondation Martin Bodmer , the State Library of New South Wales , the Auckland Central City Library , Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee , and

4860-528: The actors who unmask themselves to do so. The leather masks designed by Stein were often used inventively to comic effect, with actors sometimes removing them for an inner monologue, as in Hanks' portrayal of Callimaco, in which he conversed to himself while holding his quarter mask to one side. The Mandrake was accompanied by an original jazz score composed (and with a running improvised narration) by pianist-composer-orchestra leader Michael Wolff . According to

4968-595: The advent of a brilliant force, have greatness thrust upon them. In the first hyperbolic category is one of the city's newest theater groups, the Riverside Shakespeare Company. ... Now the group is well on its way to becoming an important theatrical force in Upper Manhattan and elsewhere. In the spring of 1978, the company mounted the complete Hamlet on the courtyard roof of Riverside Church in Manhattan in late afternoon. The success of this production enabled

5076-576: The audience in the manner of Commedia dell'arte. The Mandrake , under Southern's direction, proved one of Riverside's most successful Commedia productions to date, and helped the company to realize its goal of bringing the work of Shakespeare, his contemporaries and Commedia dell'arte to as broad an audience as possible. It also helped to further the reputation of the company as a versatile classical theatre company in New York City. The company then mounted its first History Play by Shakespeare. In

5184-562: The ban, saying: "Only our sister union, Actors' Equity Association, had the courage to stand behind its members and help them continue their creative lives in the theater. For that, we honor Actors' Equity tonight." In the 1960s, the AEA played a role in gaining public funding for the arts, including the founding of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). The AEA fought the destruction of historic Broadway theaters . It played

5292-455: The best-selling works were Venus and Adonis (12 editions), The Rape of Lucrece (6 editions), and Henry IV, Part 1 (6 editions). Of the 23 editions of the poems, 16 were published in octavo ; the rest, and almost all of the editions of the plays, were printed in quarto . The quarto format was made by folding a large sheet of printing paper twice, forming 4 leaves with 8 pages. The average quarto measured 7 by 9 inches (18 by 23 cm) and

5400-688: The book were the booksellers Edward Blount and the father/son team of William and Isaac Jaggard . William Jaggard has seemed an odd choice by the King's Men because he had published the questionable collection The Passionate Pilgrim as Shakespeare's, and in 1619 had printed new editions of 10 Shakespearean quartos to which he did not have clear rights, some with false dates and title pages (the False Folio affair). Indeed, his contemporary Thomas Heywood , whose poetry Jaggard had pirated and misattributed to Shakespeare, specifically reports that Shakespeare

5508-568: The building was erected in 1926. Performing in the style of Commedia dell'arte, with masks and fanciful commedia costumes, the cast included Arland Russell, Mark Cavalieri, Jeff Cameron, Tom Hanks , Susan Kay Logan, Perla Armanasco and Michael Goldner. In this production Tom Hanks played the lead role of the scoundrel Callimaco – in his first and only stage production in New York City until making his Broadway debut in Nora Ephron 's " Lucky Guy " in spring 2013. The production of The Mandrake

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5616-554: The catalogue contained many books not yet printed by 1622, and the modern consensus is that the entry was simply intended as advance publicity. The first impression had a publication date of 1623, and the earliest record of a retail purchase is an account book entry for 5 December 1623 of Edward Dering (who purchased two); the Bodleian Library , in Oxford , received its copy in early 1624 (which it subsequently sold for £24 as

5724-657: The chamber group The Western Wind . This production was the company's first purely Commedia dell'arte style production, and featured the use of hand-crafted leather masks, improvisation, stylized movement and comic lazzi . From 1978 to 1980, the Riverside Shakespeare Company was the professional Equity theater company in residence at Columbia University under the sponsorship of Andrew B. Harris and internationally renowned Shakespeare scholar Bernard Beckerman , with audition, construction, storage and rehearsal spaces in Prentice Hall on West 125th Street west of Broadway, just

5832-572: The church, of which he was a member, together with the pastor of West Park, Rev. Robert Davidson. The Theatre of The Shakespeare Center was reconstructed from materials from the demolition of Broadway's Helen Hayes Theatre and the set of Broadway's Nicholas Nickleby through funds raised by efforts of cast members from the Broadway production of Nicholas Nickleby from the Royal Shakespeare Company . The Shakespeare Center of

5940-601: The company to extend the run by remounting the entire production Off Broadway indoors at the American Theatre for Actors in midtown Manhattan in the fall of 1979. In the spring of 1980, the theatre company mounted a new production of Twelfth Night , set in an Art Nouveau style, directed by John Clingerman, with Andrew Achsen, Kristin Rudrud, Stuart Cohen, Alison Edwards, Beata Jachulski, Will Lecki, Scott Parson, Bruce Altman , Ken Threet, and Ted Polites, staged in

6048-606: The company to remount its Hamlet – this time lit by torches in the late evening – on the main University Walk before the Low Library at Columbia University , using a large stage surrounded by sheets of steel, erected to create a reflective environment for both the voice and the torch illumination. The production was designed and directed by W. Stuart McDowell and featured Peter Siiteri as Hamlet. Riverside's Hamlet marked its first First Folio Production , in which

6156-413: The company to remount the show with the company's new production of Much Ado About Nothing as a late night double bill in repertory at Manhattan Theatre Club 's Stage 73. With the departure of Hanks to the west coast at the end of the run at the Casa Italiana, Dan Southern took over the role of Callimaco for the late night cabaret-like performances. Subsequent to its two indoor stagings, The Mandrake

6264-629: The company's first member of its Board of Advisors, soon to be followed by Helen Hayes . At this production, it was announced that the company's ultimate goal was "to build a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater on the banks of the Hudson River in New York City." The production of As You Like It was joined at Stage 73 by the New York premiere of the Commedia dell'arte scenario, the 16th century "madrigal comedy" by Orazio Vecchi , L'Amfi Parnasso , directed by Dan Southern featuring company members performing with Renaissance music arranged and played by

6372-500: The company. The tour included an extended residency at the International Affairs Plaza on the campus of Columbia University, which allowed the company to keep the stage standing overnight, rather than the usual strike after each performance. In what was becoming a Riverside tradition, each performance was preceded a half hour before curtain by a "Greenshow" of Commedia entertainment, by the cast and musicians on

6480-439: The compositors were setting type from manuscripts (perhaps messy, revised and corrected manuscripts), their calculations would frequently be off by greater or lesser amounts, resulting in the need to expand or compress. A line of verse could be printed as two; or verse could be printed as prose to save space, or lines and passages could even be omitted (a disturbing prospect for those who prize Shakespeare's works). The First Folio

6588-526: The courtyard roof Prentise Hall at West 125th and Broadway, and transported and erected on the main campus Quad of Columbia University . The cast featured Dan Southern as Hotspur and Jason Moehring as Hal, with Eric Hoffmann as Falstaff and William Hanauer as King Henry, and a cast of forty including Jim Brewster, Mary Skinner, Vit Horejs, David Murray Jaffe, Kathleen Monteleone, Jason Moehring, Julia Murray, Gay Reed, John Miller, Ken Threet, Nick Schatzki, and Lois Tibbetts, with music by Deborah Awner played by

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6696-470: The entire text of Shakespeare's play was presented in a lively, action-filled production, enabling the company to mount the complete Hamlet in under three hours. A Greenshow also preceded each outdoor performance, entertaining the audience as they arrived in a spoof of the play to follow, which was staged by "the Players" en route to "Elsinore". The torchlit performance of Hamlet at Columbia University

6804-608: The extant copies are housed at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. , which is home to a total of 82 First Folios. After a long career as an actor, dramatist, and sharer in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men ) from c.  1585–90 until c.  1610–13 , William Shakespeare died in Stratford-upon-Avon , on 23 April 1616, and was buried in the chancel of

6912-743: The first Actors Union Charter was recognized by the American Federation of Labor as an attempt to create a minimum wage for actors being exploited. It was not until January 13, 1913, that the Union Charter failed. It later reemerged as the Actors Equity Association, with more than 111 actors and Francis Wilson as its founding board president. At a meeting held at the Pabst Grand Circle Hotel in New York City, on May 26, 1913, Actors' Equity

7020-490: The following plays which are believed likely to have been written, at least partly, by Shakespeare; Pericles, Prince of Tyre , The Two Noble Kinsmen , Edward III , and the two lost plays , Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won . Some believe the last of these is an alternative title for a known published Shakespeare play. Of perhaps 750 copies printed, 235 are known to remain, most of which are kept in either public archives or private collections. More than one third of

7128-641: The large second floor auditorium of the Casa Italiana of Columbia University located at West 117th and Amsterdam Avenue. The Casa Italiana , which had recently been designated by the Landmarks Preservation Commission, proved an ideal setting for production: Riverside's Florentine set was surrounded by the Florentine architecture, wrought iron chandeliers, and Italian antiques, some donated by Premier Benito Mussolini when

7236-429: The late spring of 1979, after two months rehearsal of the armies of King Henry and Hotspur on the rooftop of Columbia University's Prentice Hall in southern Harlem, the company opened its third annual outdoor production of free Shakespeare, a major Equity staging of the complete Henry IV, Part One . This was Riverside's second First Folio Production , mounted on a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater , constructed on

7344-473: The loss of their jobs. The theater strikes combined with freelance contracts fueled the need for actors and stagehands to strike for better working conditions and pay. Frank Gillmore , the head and treasurer of the Actor's Equity Association, understood that he would need multiple unions across the country to make a change not only in proper representation and pay, but in actors' ability to negotiate any contract

7452-478: The men who would later be involved in publishing the First Folio. But quarto was the typical format for plays printed in the period: folio was a prestige format, typically used, according to Fredson Bowers , for books of "superior merit or some permanent value". The contents of the First Folio were compiled by John Heminges and Henry Condell ; the members of the Stationers Company who published

7560-459: The most influential books ever published. Printed in folio format and containing 36 of Shakespeare's plays , it was prepared by Shakespeare's colleagues John Heminges and Henry Condell . It was dedicated to the "incomparable pair of brethren" William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke , and his brother Philip Herbert , Earl of Montgomery (later 4th Earl of Pembroke). Although 19 of Shakespeare's plays had been published in quarto before 1623,

7668-488: The movie stage under better conditions, but this was the least of its problems. In late December, groups of theater owners and non-represented producers filed lawsuits to claim damages from the AEA's contract holdout. "The plaintiffs not only seek a temporary injunction against the defendants, pending trial on an order to show cause why a permanent injunction should not be granted, but also ask damages of $ 100,000." The AEA allowed small numbers of contracts to be negotiated over

7776-399: The mystery lurk, What others call a play you call a work. Publishing literary works in folio was not unprecedented. Starting with the publication of Sir Philip Sidney 's The Countess of Pembroke's Arcadia (1593) and Astrophel and Stella (1598), both published by William Ponsonby , there was a significant number of folios published, and a significant number of them were published by

7884-566: The next few years. In 1933, the Screen Actors Guild was created and took the AEA's place as the main representative for movie actors and producers. This allowed the AEA to focus on live productions, such as theatrical performances, while the Screen Actors Guild focused on movie production and non-scripted live performances, such as minstrel, vaudeville, and live radio shows. In the 1940s, the AEA stood against segregation . When actors were losing jobs through 1950s McCarthyism and

7992-488: The octavo The Rape of Lucrece needed five sheets, versus 12 in quarto. Whatever the motivation, the move seems to have had the intended effect: Francis Meres , the first known literary critic to comment on Shakespeare, in his Palladis Tamia (1598), puts it thus: "the sweete wittie soule of Ouid liues in mellifluous & hony-tongued Shakespeare , witnes his Venus an d Adonis , his Lucrece , his sugred Sonnets among his priuate friends". Pray tell me Ben, where does

8100-463: The other four might have been a John Shakespeare, of Warwickshire , who apprenticed with Jaggard in 1610 to 1617. ("Shakespeare" was a common name in Warwickshire in that era; John was of no known relation to the playwright.) W. W. Greg has argued that Edward Knight , the "book-keeper" or "book-holder" ( prompter ) of the King's Men , did the actual proofreading of the manuscript sources for

8208-469: The pageantry and spectacle it calls for, and the result is exciting theatre. ... What makes Henry IV, Part One so delightful is that Riverside Shakespeare Company has taken pains to bring historical detail into the production. Going into its third season as New York's only year-round Shakespeare producer, Riverside has established a fine reputation for producing high-quality classic theatre." The popularity of Henry IV, Part IV at Columbia University enabled

8316-463: The performance environment into the show. This drew on the roots of the company – and of Shakespeare – in the rich heritage of Commedia dell'arte . The following autumn, the company began a series of readings of the works of Shakespeare, reading through the entire canon the first year. Growing out of this, the company inaugurated a series of free radio broadcasts of Shakespeare's works on the New York public radio station, WBAI . A board of directors

8424-443: The period mood, performers will be scattered around the park – jugglers, fencers, singers, poetry readers. Then a fanfare will call the players to the stage, and the tale of star-cross'd lovers will begin. The inaugural production of Romeo and Juliet was a two-hour version, trimmed to incorporate extensive swordplay, an extended ballroom dance scene, and pantomime , such as the appearance to Juliet of Tybalt's ghost. Each performance

8532-450: The price of a single play and represented almost two months' wages for an ordinary skilled worker." It is believed that around 750 copies of the First Folio were printed, of which there are 235 known surviving copies. The world's largest collection is in the possession of the Folger Shakespeare Library (82 copies) in Washington, D.C. , followed by Meisei University (12) in Tokyo ,

8640-578: The rest, absolute in their numbers as he conceived them." The paper industry in England was then in its infancy and the quantity of quality rag paper for the book was imported from France. It is thought that the typesetting and printing of the First Folio was such a large job that the King's Men simply needed the capacities of the Jaggards' shop. William Jaggard was old, infirm and blind by 1623, and died

8748-448: The round (with audiences on four sides) in the lower chamber of Riverside Church in Manhattan, featuring music by Deborah Awner. This production was one of many that the theatre company opened on Shakespeare's birthday, April 23; this time, the production was inaugurated by a special celebration, culminating with the reading of a Shakespearean sonnet by the pastor of Riverside Church, fellow Bardophile, Rev. William Sloan Coffin . Early in

8856-609: The stage and throughout the audience. Erika Munk of the Village Voice wrote: Shakespeare at the Delacorte always disappoints me because it's overmiked and not in tune with park life; but I saw a charming Midsummer Night's Dream by the Riverside Shakespeare Company: no mikes, no lights, no seats; only clever placement at the bottom of Soldier and Sailors Monument to give the audience a view from

8964-456: The stage with knee-deep piles of leaves, and underscored with original guitar music played by Robert Mamary and Joseph Poshek. The production was acclaimed for its creative setting in this bucolic, pre-American revolutionary time, in which Amiens, played by Larry Kirchgaessner, became a Native American in the American forest of Arden. The production was attended by Mildred Natwick , who became

9072-1144: The steps; broad acting and old-fashioned projection so that everyone could follow; an ability to capitalize on the audience's pre-disposition to enjoy itself; the flexibility to deal with dogs, kids, jets, and drunks; and splendid timing – the play ended as the sun went down. The following fall the company staged As You Like It at the Manhattan Theatre Club 's Stage 73, featuring Robert Boyle, Timothy Hall, Margo Gruber and Caryn West – all making their New York stage debut; with Kent Odell, Jim Maxson, Stuart Rudin, Ken Grantham, Timothy Hall, Peter Jensen, Kenneth Lane, Gannon McHale, Sheri Meyers, Uriel Menson, Brock Seawell, Daniel Tamm, and David Robert Westfall (stage manager), and directed by Eric Hoffmann, with set designed by David Lockner, costumes by Deborah Otte, lighting by Nat Cohen, and music by Deborah Awner. Hoffmann set Shakespeare's most pastoral play with an autumnal setting in Colonial American, using leaves gathered from Central Park, which gradually filled

9180-486: The summer of 1980, the Riverside Shakespeare Company moved into residence in West Park Presbyterian Church, at the corner of West 86th and Amsterdam, where it established The Shakespeare Center , dedicated to the year round training for the performance of the works of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and Commedia dell'arte. Professional actor Andrew Achsen played a key role in securing the site in

9288-595: The trappings and concealments of an indoor theatre, was typical of the performance style of Commedia dell'arte , in which the audience members are constantly made aware of the artifice of the production, and thereby become participants in the theatrical event As in the Riverside tradition of the Greenshow , the production of The Mandrake – whether indoors or outside in a park – relied on broad physicalization, improvisation, and comic lazzi , as well as interacting with

9396-516: The union to theatre workers who had not previously worked for Equity employers. Theatre workers need to provide a copy of their contract and proof of pay. This policy was made permanent in 2023, superseding previous methods for earning eligibility to join Equity such as the Equity Membership Candidate (EMC) program. Asides from Open Access, theatre workers may join Equity by being employed under an Equity contract, or by being

9504-477: The wrought iron chandeliers of the Casa Italiana) by John B. Forbes, and produced by Gloria Skurski and W. Stuart McDowell. In the Heights/Inwood Press of North Manhattan review of March 14, 1979, Jan Rucquoi noted that: A delightfully produced, fast-paced farce happened uptown on Columbia University's Campus, in the Casa Italiana. ... In The Mandrake the audience is often brought into the confidence of

9612-684: Was reprinted three times in the 17th century, each time by different groups of stationers; these editions are referred to as the Second Folio , Third Folio, and Fourth Folio. Jean-Christophe Mayer, in The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare's First Folio (2016), estimates the original retail price of the First Folio to be about 15 s (equivalent to £174 in 2023) for an unbound copy, and up to £ 1 (equivalent to £232 in 2023) for one bound in calfskin . In terms of purchasing power , "a bound folio would be about forty times

9720-444: Was "much offended with M. Jaggard (that altogether unknown to him) presumed to make so bold with his name." Heminges and Condell emphasised that the Folio was replacing the earlier publications, which they characterised as "stol'n and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by frauds and stealths of injurious impostors", asserting that Shakespeare's true words "are now offer'd to your view cured, and perfect of their limbes; and all

9828-538: Was acquitted of the theft itself. A July 2010 BBC programme about the affair, Stealing Shakespeare , portrayed Scott as a fantasist and petty thief. In 2013, Scott killed himself in his prison cell. In November 2014, a previously unknown First Folio was found in a public library in Saint-Omer , Pas-de-Calais in France , where it had lain for 200 years. Confirmation of its authenticity came from Eric Rasmussen of

9936-404: Was also timed to end with the setting of the sun in mid August. Performances were preceded by the entire company of actors and musicians entertaining the audience with a Greenshow – a preshow spoof of the production to follow, that served the dual purpose of building a comedic, physical bridge between actor and audience, and of establishing a physical, spontaneous style of acting that incorporated

10044-449: Was cast and rehearsed in the company's fourth floor facility of Columbia University's Prentise Hall in southern Harlem, and was directed by company member Dan Southern (then Daniel O. Smith), The production was played with authentic leather masks and fanciful costumes conceived and constructed by Broadway designer Jane Stein, period sets – including a raked checkerboard stage – designed and built by Gerard Bourcier, lighting (which incorporated

10152-527: Was delightfully depraved, and Frank Fico as Polonius was wonderfully amusing without turning the endearing and gentleman into a buffoon. Bravo also to John Rowe as Laertes. ... All of the actors projected magnificently without the aid of microphones – and this in the open air! In its second summer, 1978, the company presented a popular free tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream , with Eric Hoffmann as Puck, Karen Hurley as Titania, and Eric Conger as Oberon, directed by Gloria Skurski. An original score by Deborah Awner

10260-422: Was done with pages 3 and 10, and 4 and 9, on the second sheet, and pages 5 and 8, and 6 and 7, on the third. Then the first quire could be assembled with its pages in the correct order. The next quire was printed by the same method: pages 13 and 24 on one side of one sheet, etc. This meant that the text being printed had to be "cast off"—the compositors had to plan beforehand how much text would fit onto each page. If

10368-402: Was followed by a Commedia dell'arte production of Two Gentlemen of Verona directed by Dan Southern produced Off Broadway in the American Theatre for Actors, with music by Bob Rosen, with Ronald Lew Harris, Jim Maxson, Joe Meek, Amy Aquino, Allison Edwards, Dennis Pfister, and J. C. Hoyt. While the company produced a subscription season in 1980–1981 at The Shakespeare Center, it also mounted

10476-512: Was founded by 112 professional theater actors, who established its constitution and elected Francis Wilson as president. Leading up to the association's establishment, a handful of influential actors—known as The Players—held secret organizational meetings at Edwin Booth's The Players at its Gramercy Park mansion. A bronze plaque commemorates the room in which The Players met to establish Actors' Equity. Members included Frank Gillmore , who from

10584-597: Was founded during the strike. Equity represented directors and choreographers until 1959, when they broke away and formed their own union . The Actors Equality Strike was a series of walkouts that started in 1927 in local theaters in Los Angeles and quickly grew to the motion picture stage. During the nationwide walkouts, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences started issuing contracts to freelance film actors, which led Hollywood's actors and actresses to fear

10692-536: Was partly due to the publisher, John Harrison 's, desire to capitalize on the poems' association with Ovid : the Greek classics were sold in octavo, so printing Shakespeare's poetry in the same format would strengthen the association. The octavo generally carried greater prestige, so the format itself would help to elevate their standing. Ultimately, however, the choice was a financial one: Venus and Adonis in octavo needed four sheets of paper, versus seven in quarto, and

10800-464: Was performed by the touring group "Brass". The production continued the tradition of un-miked Shakespeare, making use of a sheet-steel touring set for natural amplification of both actors and musicians. The parks tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream was expanded to play locations in two boroughs of New York City , including Wave Hill in the Bronx, which became a favorite annual summer performing site for

10908-467: Was pointed out that while the Equality regulations were in effect, about 2000 motion picture contracts, involving salaries said to amount to $ 500,000 were offered to actors in New York." Any actor who entered into a contract not approved by the AEA would be banished from the union and have to reapply for admission after negotiations were finished. By December 1929, the AEA was negotiating terms to reset

11016-471: Was reviewed by Heights/Innwood Newspaper of North Manhattan : Siiteri's sly innuendoes and elegant gestures as Hamlet were put to good use. His reactions in his father's ghost and in Ophelia's death had traces of the vulnerability and humanity seen in the finest Hamlets. Others in the cast ranged from very good to superb. Kaeren Peregrin as Ophelia gave a chilling "mad scene". Robert Lanchester as Claudius

11124-548: Was revived for several outdoor engagements, performed on a two-wheel cart with simple cloth backdrop, beginning with the dedication of the Shakespeare Garden in the Brooklyn, hosted by Joseph Papp , Estelle Parsons and W. Stuart McDowell. The role of Callimaco was assumed by the play's director, Dan Southern. A small cart stage with canvas backdrop was used. The openness of staging, in natural sunlight and without

11232-432: Was set in the roaring 20's, as if F. Scott Fitzgerald had imagined the meeting of Beatrice and Benedict at a festive garden party on Cape Cod. The production of Much Ado About Nothing was staged as the first part of a double bill, followed by a glass of wine and then, on the same stage with a quick change of scenery, by Niccolo Machiavelli's The Mandrake . The success of Riverside's production of The Mandrake enabled

11340-414: Was soon formed under the guidance of founding chairperson, Elena Scotti of Lincoln Center . At its founding in 1977, the Riverside Shakespeare Company became New York City's only year-round professional Shakespeare company dedicated to the performance of the works of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and Commedia dell'arte. During its inaugural 1977–1978 season, after its parks tour of Romeo & Juliet ,

11448-500: Was stage managed by Nancy Consentino Minckler and produced by W. Stuart McDowell and Gloria Skurski, in association with Columbia University. In late spring of 1979 the company produced Much Ado About Nothing directed by Gloria Skurski with original music by Deborah Awner, with Margo Gruber and Gannon McHale, and Timothy Oman, Jim Brewster, Robert Boyle, Ronald Lew Harris, David Florek, Arland Russell, Daniel Tam and Leigh Podgorski, at Manhattan Theatre Club 's Stage 73. The production

11556-605: Was the executive secretary of Actors' Equity from 1918 to 1929 and president from 1929 to 1937. Actors' Equity joined the American Federation of Labor in 1919, and called a strike seeking recognition as a labor union. The strike ended the dominance of the Producing Managers' Association , including theater owners and producers like Abe Erlanger and his partner, Mark Klaw . The strike increased membership from under 3,000 to approximately 14,000. The Chorus Equity Association , which merged with Actors' Equity in 1955,

11664-458: Was typically made up of 9 sheets, giving 72 total pages. Octavos—made by folding a sheet of the same size three times, forming 8 leaves with 16 pages—were about half as large as a quarto. Since the cost of paper represented about 50-75% of a book's total production costs, octavos were generally cheaper to manufacture than quartos, and a common way to reduce publishing costs was to reduce the number of pages needed by compressing (using two columns or

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