Drama

Shakespeare in the Park

British Council Arts in partnership with The Workshop Players, their new Artists-in-Residence, will be presenting Sri Lanka's first ever Shakespeare in the Park, performing A Midsummer Night's Dream, Othello, and The Merchant of Venice at the Vihara Maha Devi Park auditorium in April and May 2016. The performance is a celebration of one of Britain's greatest British exports, Shakespeare, and is part of the British Council's global Shakespeare Lives Programme, which commemorates the 400th anniversary of the playwright's death.

"Shakespeare plays such a big part in the national curriculum for Sri Lanka in terms of English studies, but we wanted to show that his work gives us so much more than that," said British Council's Arts Manager Tanya Warnakulasuriya. Artistic Director, The Workshop Players', Jerome De Silva, explaining why 'Shakespeare in the Park' is such an important project, said "There is a big interest in Shakespeare in Sri Lanka, especially amongst students, academics and university students. Also there is a keen interest among translators. By doing Shakespeare in the Park, we make his work more accessible to the bigger audience."As well as theatre the Arts team are partnering with the Sri Lanka Foundation to show Shakespeare films, adaptations and also the new genre of 'Filmed Theatre' from London, in a year- long film program starting this April. The movies will be accompanied by panel discussions and fringe events looking at the themes of the story.

Shakespeare's clever use of rhythms and words will also be explored more with Sri Lanka's young musicians and rappers who will be collaborating in a workshop with a Hip Hop poet and Rapper from the UK, who is already working with the Royal Shakespeare Company to show young people how 'cool' Shakespeare really is.