H. R. Coursen est un maître conteur et un poète primé dont l'œuvre se caractérise par une critique avisée des affaires gouvernementales. Éducateur shakespearien reconnu, il a été désigné comme l'un des 25 "Grands Enseignants de Shakespeare" des 100 dernières années. Son écriture s'inspire de ses expériences de pilote de chasse et de son activisme anti-guerre, façonnant une voix unique qui résonne auprès des lecteurs.
Contemporary Shakespeare Production suggests that analysis and description of selected productions is the only valid approach to understanding Shakespeare’s art. It looks specifically at Richard II , Henry V , Ophelia , The Tempest , allusions to Shakespeare in film, and recent film and television productions of As You Like It , The Merchant of Venice , and King Lear .
Shakespeare's works are constantly being translated into new contexts, a fact which demonstrates the vitality of his plots in contemporary settings. Shakespeare Translated looks at the way certain plays - particularly Romeo and Juliet, Hamlet, Othello, and King Lear - have been recontextualized into films like O and King of Texas, or television shows such as «The Gilmore Girls», «Cheers», and «Clueless». This book illustrates how Romeo and Juliet is the most shamelessly appropriated of Shakespeare's scripts for contemporary use because its plot fits so neatly into the teenage culture that has burgeoned since the late 1950s. Shakespeare Translated looks at what has happened to Shakespeare, for better or - more often - for worse, as the new millennium begins.
The space of performance dictates what can occur within it. A proscenium stage as opposed to a thrust stage or black-and-white film as opposed to color film conditions what a Shakespeare script can communicate to an audience. The productions and their accommodation to their medium that this book treats in detail include television productions such as the Shaw-Warner Richard II , the Caird Henry IV, the Hytner Twelfth Night, the Eyre King Lear, and the second season of the Animated Shakespeare Series, as well as films such as the British Film Institute’s silent film production, the Hoffman A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, the Almereyda Hamlet, the Branagh Hamlet, the Taymor Titus , and the Branagh Love’s Labour’s Lost.