Société Française Shakespeare membership

To register to the SFS mailing list

Please contact us: contact@societefrancaiseshakespeare.org.

To become a member of the Société Française Shakespeare

Membership :

  • Student: 17€ (15€ for those who select automatic membership renewal)
  • Regular: 48.50€ (45€ for those who select automatic membership renewal)
  • Retiree: 37.50€ (35€ for those who select automatic membership renewal)
  • Institutional (theater, academic society, research centre…) : 60€

First-time membership* :

  • Student: 10€
  • Regular: 20€

*fee applicable for the first year of membership.

Payment:

  • By cheque to « Trésorière de la Société Française Shakespeare », c/o Chantal Schütz, 22 rue Saint-Sauveur, 75002 Paris. This applies only to members with a French bank account.
  • By annual wire transfer: please print the form in the French version of this page and follow instructions. This applies only to members with a bank account in the EU-SEPA area.
  • By wire transfer: use the following bank account number:

IBAN: FR76 1027 8060 3100 0203 5530 357
BIC: CMCIFR2A
Name: SOCIETE FRANCAISE SHAKESPEARE.

Please make sure that the transfer is labeled in Euros and that you pay all transfer fees.

  • By Paypal (please select renewal OR first-time membership in one of the menus below.
    Please note that a processing fee is included for all Paypal / credit card payments processed through Paypal.

Options de paiement




First-time membership



Adhésion à la Société Française Shakespeare

Pour vous inscrire sur la liste de diffusion de la SFS

Contactez-nous: contact@societefrancaiseshakespeare.org.

Pour adhérer à la Société Française Shakespeare

Montant de la cotisation :

  • Tarif étudiant : 17€ (15€ pour les sociétaires adhérant au prélèvement automatique)
  • Tarif plein : 48,50€ (45€ pour les sociétaires adhérant au prélèvement automatique)
  • Tarif retraité : 37,50€ (35€ pour les sociétaires adhérant au prélèvement automatique)
  • Institution (théâtre, société savante, centre de recherche…) : 60€

Montant de la cotisation pour les nouveaux adhérents* :

  • Tarif étudiant: 10€
  • Tarif plein: 20€

*tarif pour la première année de cotisation.

Modalités de paiement:

  • Par chèque bancaire à l’ordre de “Trésorière de la Société Française Shakespeare”, adressé à Chantal Schütz, 22 rue Saint-Sauveur, 75002 Paris.
  • Par prélèvement automatique: remplir le formulaire ci-joint.
  • Par virement bancaire: utilisez le numéro de compte ci-dessous:

IBAN: FR76 1027 8060 3100 0203 5530 357
BIC: CMCIFR2A
Name: SOCIETE FRANCAISE SHAKESPEARE.

  • Par Paypal (choisir renouvellement OU première adhésion) dans l’un des menus déroulants ci-dessous.
    À noter que des frais de gestion sont inclus dans le montant de l’adhésion lorsque vous payez par Paypal.

Options de paiement




Première adhésion



Notre Dame, IN

Shakespeare Theatre Association Member Theatre, Shakespeare at Notre Dame is in the midst of hosting two international conferences on campus as part of their “Shakespeare: 1616-2016” celebration. First up is the second iteration of 2013’s Shakespeare in Prisons Conference, titled, “Shakespeare in Prisons: In Practice.” SIP:IP brings community and prison arts practitioners from around the world to Notre Dame January 25-27 for three days of plenaries, panel discussions, and active workshop training by some of the most noted figures in the field of Shakespeare and social justice (including Curt Tofteland, Shakespeare Behind Bars; Tom Magill, Educational Shakespeare Company; Sabra Williams, The Actors’ Gang Prison Project; Michelle Hensley, Ten Thousand Things; Bill Watson and Nancy Smith-Watson, Feast of Crispian; and Meade Palidofsky, Storycatchers Theatre). Participants will be given an opportunity to explore techniques for approaching incarcerated and nontraditional populations. Continue reading “Notre Dame, IN”

[it]Firenze [en]Florence [fr]Florence [es]Florencia

Shakespeare Week 2014 – Othello

7-10 April, The Harold Acton Library

Monday 7 April
15.00 Public reading of the play Othello. Open to all.
18.30 Buffet
19.30 Film screening Othello (Oliver Parker, with Laurence Fishburne, Kenneth Branagh, Irène Jacob, 1995) in English

Tuesday 8 April
15.00 Film screening Othello (Stuart Burge, with Laurence Olivier, Maggie Smith, 1965) in English
18.00 Exhibition opening. The students of Ontario College of Art and Design show photographs and drawings inspired by Othello. The exhibition will be open throughout the week.

Wednesday 9 April
18.00 Lecture by musicologist Matteo Sansone ‘Reinterpreting Shakespeare: Boito’s and Verdi’s Otello
20.00 Film screening Othello (Orson Welles, with Orson Welles, Micheál MacLiammóir, Robert Coote 1952) in English

Shakespeare Graduate Conference: Shakespeare and His Contemporaries: Forms of Nationhood

Thursday 10 April

9.30 Registration
9.50 Welcome by the Director of The British Institute of Florence, Julia Race

10.00 First Session
Chair Professor Alessandra Petrina, Università degli Studi di Padova (Italy), IASEMS President
Speaking the nation: identity through language

10.30 Anna Livia Frassetto, Università degli Studi di Sassari (Italy)
Shakespeare’s Lucrece: an ‘uncomfortable myth’

11.00 Kara Barfett, Western University (Canada)
“O Brave New World”: a transatlantic reading of Shakespeare

11.30 Cristiano Ragni, Università di Perugia (Italy)
“Pray Sir, what is all this in English?”. William Haughton teaching nationhood in Shakespeare’s England

12.00 Paul Frazer, Northumbria University (United Kingdom)
Irish mobility and English memory in Webster’s The White Devil

12.30 Discussion
13.00 Lunch

14.00 Second Session
Chair Professor Gabriella Del Lungo, Università degli Studi di Firenze (Italy) Writing the Map of Tudor England: John Leland’s Itinerary

14.30 Caterina Guardini, Università degli Studi di Udine (Italy)
“The lovely nymph of stately Thames/ The darling of the Ocean”. The rhetoric of water in the creation of the Prince of Wales

15.00 Nagihan Haliloğlu, Fatih Sultan Mehmet University (Turkey)
‘Turk Gregory’: Turks and Catholics as metaphors for each other in Shakespeare’s plays

15.30 Valeria Tirabasso, Università degli Studi di Trento (Italy)
The Tempest: building a nation at the crossroads between real and utopian geography

16.00 Florence Hazrat, University of St Andrews (United Kingdom)
Snapping up trifles and snatches of old tunes: sonic nationhood on the Early Modern stage

16.30 Beatrice Montedoro, University of Oxford (United Kingdom)
Commonplace books and the publishing of English drama: forms of nationhood in Palladis Tamia (1598), Belvedere (1600) and England’s Parnassus (1600)

17.00 Discussion
17.30 Conference closes

Buenos Aires

Augusto Fernandes

“Shakespeare is not just to be read but to be performed”
Augusto Fernandes
Augusto Fernandes is one of the most well-known Directors and Drama Teachers in Argentina.

Director and praised Drama Teacher Augusto Fernandes began his career at the age of 5, acting at the Drama Department of the Labarden School. Artistic Director at La Máscara Theater. He completed his training with Mrs. Hedy Crilla (introduced Stanislavsky’s Method in Argentina). His first job as Stage Director was in 1962 when he directed the play Soledad para cuatro.

He created the Equipo de Teatro Experimental de Buenos Aires (ETEBA,1969). He was Dean at Escuela Nacional de Arte Dramático (1973). He delivered acting training seminars in France, Italy, Spain and Germany. In 1996 founded his own acting school.

He directed among others: Fin de diciembre (Best Direction Award, 1965), El Tiempo de los Carozos and Negro Azul Negro (Best Director Award 1966), El Campo (Best Show Award 1968), La leyenda de Pedro, Madera de Reyes (Award Best Direction 1994) & El Relámpago.

Borges & Shakespeare

“Jorge Luis Borges was a great admirer of the English Language and of William Shakespeare. Borges was dazzled with the enigma of identity”

Borges wrote: “Those who repeat a line from Shakespeare are William Shakespeare”
“No one has ever been so many men as this man who like the Egyptian Proteus, could exhaust all the appearances of being”

Rolando Costa Picazo
Rolando Costa Picazo
Dr. Rolando Costa Picazo is a scholar, critic, and translator.

Professor at Universidad de Buenos Aires and Universidad de Belgrano. Member of Academia Argentina de Letras and Academia de Estudios Interdiciplinarios. Correspondent for Real Academia Española.

President of the Asociación Argentina de Estudios Americanos and President of the Asociación Argentina de Literatura Comparada for the period 2011-2014.

Dr. Costa Picazo translated more than 100 works from English into Spanish.
In prose, authors such as Hemingway, Faulkner, Gordimer, Mailer, Miller, Capote, Henry James, Poe, Melville, Bellow. In Poetry, Auden, Crane, Kerouac, O’Hara, Eliot, Pound and Shakespeare.

He is author of critical editions of Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello and Romeo and Juliet.

He spent the last years working on a critical edition of Jorge Luis Borges ‘s Complete Works (III Volumes).

A Shakespeare Celebration at Fundación Borges

FSA celebration, April 2013
FSA celebrated Shakespeare’s Birthday at Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges on April 23 2013.

FSA organized a great celebration of Shakespeare’s Birthday in Buenos Aires on April 23 hosted by Fundación Borges thanks to Mrs. María Kodama, Borges’s widow and President.

First, Director and praised Drama Teacher Augusto Fernandes spoke about Shakespeare’s work from his perspective as a director. He referred to his first approach to Shakespeare. He expressed the concern about the difficulties of working with existing Shakespeare translations into Spanish for the stage.
He also shared his experience on making his own production of the play Pericles.

Dr. Rolando Costa Picazo gave a brilliant Lecture on Shakespeare in Borges’s work.
He mentioned the multiple and deep references on Shakespeare in Borges’s work. Finally recalled the famous Lecture given by Borges at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC (USA).

Keynote speakers contributions to draw the attention of Shakespeare in the Argentinian culture will be remembered by a joyful audience, packed in the cozy and significant venue of Fundación Internacional Jorge Luis Borges.

Vatican / Rome

On November 12th 1964, during the third phase of the Second Vatican Council, the Royal Shakespeare Company gave a Shakespeare commemorative recital which was attended by Pope Paul VI.

The recital, which took place at the Auditorium in Palazzo Pio in Via della Conciliazione near St. Peter’s Basilica, was part of the celebrations for the fourth centenary of William Shakespeare’s birth in Rome. Excerpts from the Sonnets, The Passionate Pilgrim, and from some of the the plays were given by RSC members Dorothy Tutin, Tony Church and Derek Godfrey. Italian actors gave readings in Italian in the second part of the program. British actor Tony Church arranged the English text; Orazio Costa was in charge of the Italian adaptation and Giovanni Zammerine played the organ.

The event acquired a clear international resonance, as the Pope sat, throughout the performance, on a raised platform amid many of the 2000 Vatican Ecumenical Council fathers from all continents, the College of Cardinals and many other dignitaries attending the Second Vatican Council.

The 1623 First Folio owned by the RSC was sent to Rome for the occasion. After the recital, Dorothy Tutin asked the Pope to bless it. Paul VI misunderstood her words and thought it was a gift for the Vatican Library. As one of his aids walked away with the prized book, some 1964 journals report, bystanders heard the Pope say: “It will make a beautiful memento for this occasion.” Archbishop Heenan explained to the Pope it had been a misunderstanding and the book was returned to the members of the British company, but to this day, it is not clear if the First Folio was finally blessed or not.

Praha [en]Prague [fr]Prague [es]Praga

The relationship of William Shakespeare and Czech arts and literature is a long one. “Apart from identifying (him) and his plays with an ideal value system”[[Martin Procházka, “Shakespeare and Czech Resistance”. in Heather Kerr, Robin Eaden, Madge Mitton (eds), Shakespeare: World Views (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1996) 45.]] of a better world that goes well beyond the troubles of everyday lives, within the Czech context Shakespeare has been endlessly used as a mean of resistance against the unapproved ruling power. One of the most important moments of Czech Shakespearean resistance was the 1916 Prague Shakespearean Cycle which celebrated the 300th anniversary of his death. The aim of this celebration had both artistic and political implications, to draw attention of the rest of the world to the existence, maturity and the rights of the oppressed Czech nation.

The whole cycle originally embraced 16 evenings with 16 plays by William Shakespeare including a five hour long version of both the parts of Henry IV., which were to be presented in one evening. Due to censorship[[Despite the fact that due to the severe cuts the political notion of the play became less evident, and the production turned into series of comic scene interconnected with the figure of Falstaff, Kvapil had to tear this premiere away from the rest of the cycle specifically due to the extra attached coronation scene which was by censorship perceived as the key political statement of the play. See: Martin Procházka, “Shakespeare and Czech Resistance”, 53.]] this premiere had to be postponed to a separate staging in autumn 1916. The final order of the plays was: The Comedy of Errors (27. 3. 1916), The Life and Death of King Richard III (30. 3. 1916), Romeo and Juliet (1. 4. 1916), The Midsummer Night´s Dream (4. 4. 1916), The Merchant of Venice (7. 4. 1916), Taming of the Shrew (13. 4. 1916), As You Like It (15. 4. 1916), Measure for Measure (17. 4. 1916), Twelfth Night, or What You Will (19. 4. 1916), Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark (23. 4. 1916), King Lear (25. 4. 1916), Macbeth (28. 4. 1916), Othello, the Moor of Venice (30. 4. 1916), and The Winter´s Tale (4. 5. 1916).

The whole cycle opened on 27th March 1916 with an hour long lecture, held by an important Czech intellectual, novelist, and scholar, František Xaver Šalda, entitled Genius Shakespeare, and His Oeuvre. The lecture is interesting in its very structure, with the usage of the second person singular as if speaking to Shakespeare himself when describing his oeuvre, stressing “the establishment of ‘concrete humanity’, consisting in the fullness and complexity of dramatic characters”[[Martin Procházka, “Shakespeare and Czech Resistance”, 52 .]], and contrary in the very last sentence using the second person plural when activating the audience, with: “Hurry, hurry to love, what shall not be seen twice”[[“Spěště, spěšte milovati, čeho neuzříte dvakráte!” Translation mine. František X. Šalda, Genius Shakespeare a jeho tvorba/Genius Shakespeare and His Oeuvre (Praha: Nakladatel Fr. Borový 1916) 21.]], which was well heard by the audience, and reflected by press. The majority of the performances were entirely sold out, and despite the terrors of the War, spectators were enthusiastic, as stated by F.X. Šalda: “By creating the jubilee Shakespearean Dramatic Cycle in spring 1916, the National Theater understood what is expected from it, and by those means formed a silent political protest.”[[„Národní divadlo pochopilo co se od něho očekává, když uspořádala na jaře roku 1916 jubilejní shakespearovský cyklus dramatický, který dopadl jako tichý protest politický.“Translation mine. František Xaver Šalda, “O naší moderní kultuře divadelně dramatické” (About our Modern Theatrical and Dramatic Culture), in Soubor díla F.X.Šaldy (Praha: Čs. spisovatel, 1961) 217. But a systematic reflection of the political implications of this event is not extant.]].

The celebration of the anniversary however did not focus only on the National Theater but was supported by other Shakespearean productions, as for example The Merchant of Venice in the Švanda Theater on the left bank of the Vltava river, The Merry Wives of Windsor in the Municipal Theater in Vinohrady, and Hamlet, the Prince of Denmark which was performed by a travelling theater troupe outside of Prague.[[Vladimír Müller, Kvapilův Shakespeare/Kvapil´s Shakespeare, Shakespearovské kapitoly/Chapters on Shakespeare I., III., manuscript, Praha: Divadelní ústav, 1960, 60.]] The press was also much involved in the preparation of the cycle informing about the rehearsal, and separate evenings of the cycle, two magazines (Světozor, and Zlatá Praha) prepared special editions dedicated to William Shakespeare. Publishing houses reprinted popular essays and publications by elite Czech scholars, for example Vilém Mathesius, the founder of English studies on the Prague University. Shakespeare´s plays were adapted into prose and published in popular book editions, and also into texts suitable for marionette theaters.[[Vladimír Müller, 60.]]

Praha [en]Prague [fr]Prague [es]Praga

In April 1864 the entire cultural world commemorated the anniversary of Shakespeare´s Tercentenary, and Czech artists joined them. Not only this celebration confirmed the maturity of Czech theatre but at the same time it was a manifestation of the independence of the Czech theatre company from the German theatre company which until that year both shared the stage of the Provisional Theatre (a theatre house established before the actual National Theatre was built) since its establishment in (1862). In (1864) the troupes definitely separated in when the German troupe left the Provisional Theatre, and moved to a different theatre space.

The festivities celebrating Shakespeare´s Tercentenary began with a cycle of performances in the Provisional Theatre (Much Ado about Nothing, Coriolanus, Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, and Rossini´s opera version of Othello).

On 2nd April, 1864, the celebration culminated with a choral symphony by H. Berlioz, entitled Romeo and Juliette. Then the artists appeared in six “tableaux vivants” from Shakespearean plays (the kidnapping of Jessica from Shylock´s house from The Merchant of Venice; Richard the Third proposing to Anne in front of the grave of Henry the Sixth from The Life and Death of King Richard III; a lady begging for the saving of Rome from Coriolanus; then a scene from Cymbeline; the death scene from Romeo and Juliet, and the last crowning tableau vivant was from The Winter’s Tale, the second pastoral scene with Perdita giving flowers to the participants of the sheep-shearing feast. Then Shakespeare´s bust was revealed centre stage, and all 165 actors dressed in Shakespearean costumes and costumes of various nations made a pageant accompanied by the sounds of Smetana´s March, composed especially for this occasion. According to an anonymous article,

The audience was speechless, and we can bravely say that we have never seen something so spectacular in its size and organization. The characters from Shakespeare as well as the representatives of nations rose higher and higher, and stopped abeam Shakespeare´s grand bust. Then when all of them stood there the group opened and Miss Malá [one of the most famous Czech actresses of later 19th century] was prepared to deliver the Epilogue.[[ “V obecenstvu se zatajil v pravém slova smyslu dech a můžeme směle říct, že jsme podobně velkolepého, masou a uspořádáním vynikajícího živého obrazu nespatřili. Postavy Shakespearovy i zástupové holdujících národů byly efektně vystupujíce výše a výše kolem obrovského poprsí Shakespearova sestaveny. Před poprsím bylo krásné seskupení rozevřeno a zde stála slečná Malá co Perdita připravena, aby po jásavém přivítání překvapujícího obrazu přednesla doslov.” Anonymous, Hlas 114, (26.4. 1916). My translation.]]

It was written by Emanuel Züngel, a poet and translator, who did not omit to remark on Shakespeare´s usage of Bohemia in The Winter´s Tale, and transformed it to contemporary, politically underlined statement where Perdita was the impersonation of “perdita ars bohemica”, the lost Czech arts that found their way home. The audience together with journalists and reviewers were astonished by the grand manifestation of Czech culture and Czech nation.