Shakespeare on Stage

Including pop-up scenes to make yourself

Shakespeare is probably the most gifted playwright in any language that the world has ever known.

He was born in 1564 at Stratford-upon-Avon and died in 1616, leaving behind a legacy of wonderful plays that have been performed ever since. Little is known about his life and this has given plenty of opportunity for speculation that the plays were in fact written by someone else. However it is the plays which have survived and which are the lasting memorial.

This book explores how they have been treated and staged over the past four hundred years. As part of this exploration, there are four three-dimensional pull-up theatre scenes to cut out and make. They are presented in the form of personal diaries and tell of the experiences of four theatre-goers in widely different periods of the past.

They tell us how they looked forward to the performance of the chosen play and we can read their comments afterwards. Although our diarists are imaginary, they do give us an intriguing insight into what the theatre was like at those times and how Shakespeare was regarded by his audiences.