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First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library

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All programs take place at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art unless otherwise specified. Click here for more information on the exhibtion.

Exhibition: Time's Pencil: Shakespeare After the Folio
January 4-March 28, 2016
Location: Special Collections and University Archives, Knight Library, North Wing, 2nd Floor
This installation explores changes in how Shakespeare's works were understood, published, and performed and in how the historical figure of Shakespeare himself was thought about in the centuries after the First Folio's publication in 1623. Learn about Shakespeare's methods of composition, the many changes to his plays that became standard at the very height of his popularity, the stories and fictions written about him from the 19th century on, and his importance in Eugene over the last 100 years.

Free Admission
January 6 – February 7, 2016
The JSMA offers free admission to the galleries during the run of First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library.

Gala Performance and Reception: Sweetly Writ: Oregon Shakespeare Festival Celebrates Shakespeare's First Folio
Saturday, January 9, 7 p.m.
Location: Hult Center for the Performing Arts
Actors from the renowned Oregon Shakespeare Festival perform excerpts from Shakespeare's own changing versions of King Lear, demonstrating how Shakespeare conceived different takes and intriguing variations on the same characters and situations. After the performance, the cast will discuss Shakespeare’s changes and how actors and directors choose among Shakespeare’s different texts with the audience. A celebratory reception will follow, including Renaissance music performed by Phil and Gayle Neuman, Alexandra Bonds’s award-winning Shakespeare costumes, and delicious Renaissance savory and sweet treats!  Sweetly Writ is sponsored by the City of Eugene, Hult Center for the Performing Arts. Oregon Shakespeare Festival and University of Oregon Department of Theatre Arts.

Free, but tickets are required. For tickets, visit the Hult Center Ticket Office in person, call 541-682-5000, or visit HultCenter.org. Ticket Office hours: Tuesday-Friday 12pm-5pm; Saturday 11am-3pm.

Documentary Film Screening: Shakespeare Behind Bars
Sunday, January 10, 3 p.m.
Location: 156 Straub Hall
In this documentary, a theater troupe consisting entirely of convicted felons performs the plays of William Shakespeare for a captive audience. The troupe is already in its seventh year when the film crew joins them as they attempt to put on "The Tempest," a play largely about the dangers of social isolation. In candid interviews, the film chronicles the project from its casting, through its rehearsals and finally to its performance at the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in Kentucky.

Teacher Workshop: Seeking Shakespeare: Integration of Visual Arts, Theatre, and Writing
Wednesday, January 13, 5:30–7:30 p.m.
This workshop will connect teachers with the language of the First Folio-both aurally and visually- and introduce teachers to the original Folio. The Folio contains the first printed versions of plays such as The Tempest, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, and Twelfth Night, and one of the earliest versions of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Teachers will learn strategies for teaching Shakespeare and suggestions for integrating drama and theatre into your classroom. Only 30 spots are available and registration is required. Curriculum materials, dinner and 2 PDUs will be provided for each teacher attending. The workshop is open to any middle or high school teacher employed in Oregon. To register, please send an email to Halley Perry: halleyp@uoregon.edu

Lecture: “Folio vs. Quarto: Conflicting Readings and the Critical Tradition”
Lunchtime lecture by Ben Saunders, professor of English
Friday, January 15, 12 p.m.
Bring your lunch or purchase one from Marché Museum Café.

Celebrating Shakespeare’s First Folio
Saturday, January 16, 3 p.m.
Location: Downtown Eugene Public Library, 10th & Olive
Join Lara Bovilsky for an introduction to the exhibit “First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare” at the University of Oregon’s Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art. Bovilsky will give an insider’s guide to this month’s events and discuss the history of remembering Shakespeare. Her talk will explore the radically changing assessments of Shakespeare’s gifts and contributions to the world, from his friends’ conflicting descriptions to modern perspectives. An Associate Professor of English at the University of Oregon, Bovilsky led the successful application process to bring this historic display to Eugene. Free. Information: 541-682-5450 or www.eugene-or.gov/library.

Oregon Humanities Center Tzedek Lecture: We Know Who We Are But Not Who We May Be
by Curt Tofteland, founder and director, Shakespeare Behind Bars
Tuesday, January 19, 7:30 p.m.
Location: 156 Straub Hall
Sitting in a circle-of-trust using art, theatre, and the collected works of William Shakespeare, participants explore what it means to be a human being by asking themselves four questions: Who am I? What do I love? How will I live my life knowing I will die? What is my gift to humankind? By living into these questions, each participant seeks to understand their early life development and how those experiences shaped their view of the world; who they were when they committed their crime; who they are at the present moment; and who they wish to become. This process of habilitation leads the way to transformational change that allows participants the possibility of not being remembered for the very worst thing that they did.

South Eugene High School Theater presents Hamlet
January 21-23, 28, 30 at 7 p.m.
January 31 at 2 p.m.
Location: South Eugene High School Theater, 400 E. 19th Ave, Eugene
Tickets: www.southeugenetheater.org
Pat Avery directs a cast of 15 students in this sophisticated production that tells the story of Hamlet, prince of Denmark, as he seeks revenge for his father’s mysterious death. Often called “the perfect play”, Hamlet is Shakespeare’s most renowned work. The show features Simon Luedtke (senior) as Hamlet, Rose Heising (senior) as Ophelia, Abigail Howell (senior) as Gertrude, Sage Siepert (junior) as King Claudius, Zack Harris (junior) as Polonius, Sophia James (senior) as Horatio, and Sophia Trotter (junior) as Laertes. Tickets are $7 for students and seniors, $10 for adults and can be purchased online at www.southeugenetheater.org or at the box office prior to the show. For further information, call the South Eugene Theater box office at 541-790-8070.

Performance: Scenes from Shakespeare
Wednesday, January 27, 6 p.m.
Students in the Department of Theatre Arts perform scenes from selected plays.

Singing Shakespeare
Thursday, January 28, 6 p.m.
Location: Downtown Eugene Public Library, 10th & Olive
Shakespeare’s words have been set to music for hundreds of years by composers from Byrd to Bernstein. University of Oregon School of Music vocalists directed of Laura Wayte will share a variety of examples in concert at Eugene Public Library. Free. Information: 541-682-5450 or www.eugene-or.gov/library.

Lecture: “Creating Shakespeares: The First Folio and its Afterlives”
Lunchtime Lecture by Lara Bovilsky, associate professor of English
Friday, January 29, 12 p.m.
Professor Bovilsky will discuss what Shakespeare’s different published works teach us about how he and his contemporaries wrote and thought about theater, as well as how the Folio was changed and encountered differently by later generations of editors and readers. How did we come to value theater – seen in its own time as disreputable popular culture – as literature? What role did the Folio play in creating our own ideas about the value of gifted writers and their works? Bring your lunch or purchase one from Marché Museum Café.

First Friday Concert: The Food of Love - Shakespeare’s Music
Friday, February 5, 6 p.m.
Location: Downtown Eugene Public Library, 10th & Olive
The Oregon Bach Collegium will perform a concert of songs and instrumental pieces inspired by Shakespeare, featuring works written and performed during his lifetime and in the 400 years since. The concert will be emceed by William Shakespeare, played by Geoff Ridden, who will explain the music and its use in his plays. Musicians will be Wyatt True (violin), Marc Vanscheeuwijck (cello), and Margret Gries (harpsichord). The Downtown Library stays open until 8:00 p.m. on the First Friday of each month. Free. Information: 541-682-5450 or www.eugene-or.gov/library.

Family Day: Lunar New Year Celebration
Saturday, February 6, 12–3 p.m.
Although this year’s Family Day focuses on Asian holiday festivities, visitors will also enjoy an art activity focused on Shakespeare and Japanese playwright Chikamatsu Monzaemon with the Imagination International Art Bus! Family Day is co-sponsored by the Center for Asian and Pacific Studies, Confucius Institute, and Imagination International.

Naked Shakespeare
Saturday, February 6, 3 p.m.,
Location: Downtown Eugene Public Library, 10th & Olive
Director, teacher, and actor Judith “Sparky” Roberts will talk about the art of artifice in Shakespeare’s plays, in a presentation illustrated with performances by professional actors Joe Cronin, Dylan Skye Kennedy, Richard Leebrick, Marcee Long, and Patrick Torelle. Discover how Shakespeare entices the audience to revel in "the momentary trick.” Explore how he lays bare the illusions of theatre while using lures both obvious and subtle to engage the audience's collusion, unleashing their "imaginary forces." Free. Information: 541-682-5450 or www.eugene-or.gov/library.

First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, is a national traveling exhibition organized by the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, to commemorate the 400th anniversary in 2016 of Shakespeare’s death. It is produced in association with the American Library Association and the Cincinnati Museum Center. First Folio! The Book that Gave Us Shakespeare, on tour from the Folger Shakespeare Library, has been made possible in part by a major grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the human endeavor, and by the support of Google.org, Vinton and Sigrid Cerf, and other generous donors.

The JSMA’s presentation is supported by the Kingsley Weatherhead Undergraduate Shakespeare Fund in the Department of English, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Division of Undergraduate Studies, the Oregon Humanities Center, and the Departments of English and Theatre Arts. Additional support has been provided by the City of Eugene Hult Center for the Performing Arts, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, and the University of Oregon Special Collections and University Archives.