Please Note: The London Shakespeare Workout (LSW)
and the LSW Prison Project
has a NEW WEBSITE -
We would ask that you please now go to:
https://www.londonshakespeare.co.uk
Thank you.
London Shakespeare Workout (LSW)
LSW employs the works of Shakespeare
alongside those of other major
Dramatic/Cinematic/Musical/Choreographic writers and thinkers as a tool
towards effective interaction in order to (a) create new work
and (b) promote confidence through the will to dream for all.
AN ADVENTURES BEGINS ... & CONTINUES ...
Since 26th October 1997 LSW has (i) established the
hugely successful and unique 'Shakespeare
Workouts' (as founded by Dr. Bruce Wall, LSW's Executive Director, aside
Dame Dorothy Tutin) and involved the interactive participation of over 12,000 professional
performers and 9,000 offenders/ex-offenders; (ii) given noted presentations/workshops in
venues
ranging from the House of Lords to the United Nations; from
Scotland Yard to Broadway
and has (iii) established itself as an effective
producer
of quality professional theatre in venues ranging
from HMP Pentonville to the
Royal
Opera House; from the Norwich Playhouse to the West End's Criterion
and
Palladium Theatres; from the beautiful 'Egg' at the Theatre Royal Bath in Somerset to the
Stephan Joseph Theatre in North Yorkshire; from the Battersea Arts Centre to the
Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theatre
(Straford Upon Avon, UK) in an Educational launch
with the RSC as well
as in incentives involving the Canadian Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario
to
membership
in such European undertakings as the Prisons Arts Network and the Will to Dream
Incentive.
INTERNATIONAL ADVENTURES
LSW has
enjoyed involvement in endeavours in countries spanning Bulgaria, Slovakia, Estonia, Austria, Spain,
Brazil,
the Czech Republic, Malta,
Italy, Ireland, the United States, Wales, Canada, Uganda, Northern Ireland, China, Chile,
India, Hungry, France, Germany and Norway among others.
CORPORATE INCENTIVES
In tandem with
the London Business School, LSW developed
the successful Corporate programme (Willing Dreams) proactively running programmes for a wide range of
major corporate entities
including Sony-Ericsson, CelTel, Glaxo Smith Kline, the Metropolitan Police,
Deutsche Bank,
Lloyds TSB and Danone.
EDUCATIONAL INITIATIVES
LSW continues to operate Dramatic Workshops in a vast array
of educational
organisations
ranging from all leading members of the Conference of Drama Schools
(CDS)
to Educational
Departments
within 100 different English Prisons and the Military Corrective
Training Centre;
from the Liverpool
Institute for
the
Performing Arts to Trinity College, Dublin; from a relationship with BADA
(the British
American Drama Academy)
to incentives involving both Cambridge (ETC & ADC)
and Oxford
(OUDS) Universities.
LSW has also led multitudinous sessions involving students in schools at all levels
throughout the
United Kingdom from programmes at such historic institutions
as Bedales, Uppingham, Kings,
King William's College
on the Isle of Man and the McAuley School in Doncaster to a large number of
presentations for noted
organisations spanning The Young Presidents Association to Rainer's REST
(resettlement)
initiatives as well as the Bath Shakespeare Festival and the Shakespeare Institute's British Shakespeare Conference.
DRAMA SCHOOL INTERACTIONS
For the past 20 years LSW has been privileged to enjoy an on-going core relationship with the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.
Outside of RADA other drama schools who have been been actively involved in LSW endeavours include (but are in
no way limited to) the Guildhall School of Music and Drama (GSMD), Arts Educational, ALRA, LIPA, University College London,
Rose Bruford College, Central School of Speech and Drama, Goldsmiths College, UAL and the noted Ernst Busch Dramatic Academy in Berlin.
THEATRICAL PRESENTATIONS
Among the world premiere presentations LSW
has successfully produced are
VOICES (ROH, Oxford Playhouse, ADC); HOMAGE BEHIND (Criterion
Theatre);
ALBA (HMP Send & Criterion Theatre); BLACKING IAGO (HMP
Brixton, BBC2 &
National Theatres spanning
Theatre Royal Bath to
Alnwick Playhouse); BLACK ATLAS
(appearing nationally
in theatres spanning Hull Truck to the
Cambridge Arts Theatre) and the
original musical LIFTING THE MASK (again appearing throughout UK's professional
theatrical
venues and additionally opening several new British venues). Celebrated original
versions of Shakespeare's plays have
also been
presented including THE WAX KING (Henry VI, Pt. 3);
SHAKESPEARE 'N SINATRA (The Winter's Tale)
and
ANIMATING MACBETHS as
well as early productions of TWELTH NIGHT and ANTONY & CLEOPATRA.
LSW was privileged to present the 90 minute ROUNDING SHAKESPEARE
programme at the California Mens Colony in
California
about which a Los Angeles
Times feature was written plus
photographs taken by the esteemed Georgia Oetker,
and a multitude of responses from the men (prisoners)
involved can be found by clicking here.
You can additionally see film clips
embedded from a prison programme in
Santiago, Chile here.
With the LUP Incentive celebrating its 20th Anniversary LSW presented
original compilations of Shakespeare, original inmate verse and other classical
texts in SINNA, TUESDAY and PREPARE in 2017
and PRETEND an original take on Pushkin's The Tale of Boris Godunov
performed in both Russian & English in 2018.
TIM WILLIAMS AWARDS
Since 2009 in memory of LSW's late Musical Director, Tim Williams, the charity
has been sponsoring an awards
programme celebrating the art of theatrical song composition, specifically as it
relates to lyrics either drawn from
or inspired by classical/established sources not originally intended to be sung.
This has led the the hugely successful
programmes FIRST TIME,
READINESS IS ALL,
OUT OF THE PIANO and
WHEN YOU HEAR MY VOICE.
A twenty five song
sampling from TWA incentives can be heard
here
and highlight videos sampled
here.
In 2014 LSW was especially proud to be able to contribute to a programme focusing enhanced
literacy through word,
music and dance in partnership with the esteemed English National Ballet's
Choreographics incentive.
INTERNATIONAL PRESENTATION IN MALTA
In January/February 2012 LSW was thrilled to be able to
engineer a
theatrical project in association
with the young offenders division (YOURS) of the Corradino Correctional Facility
(CCF) in Malta.
WHEN YOUHEAR MY VOICE involved a team of professionals and international young
offenders performing 'outside' at the
St. James Cavalier
Theatre alongside the creation of a feature-length
documentary concerning the restorative effect of literacy by the noted film
maker, Natasha Serlin.
A fully illustrated LSW report - replete with 182 stunning photos and media
links - can be seen
here.
THE LINKED UP INITIATIVE - LUP: CELEBRATING LSW's 20TH ANNIVERSARY
& BEYOND
In celebration of it's 20th Anniversary Year (2017) LSW began to dream of a prison interaction for EVERY UK drama student, or certainly for as many as might be afforded that privilege. We believe this is a vital part of their training as our future key communicators. Proudly in 2016 LSW's prison programme with RADA - now in its 20th year - became a part of every RADA student's core BA curriculum. Joining with HMP Pentonville - one of the LSW's original core prison homes - and other core UK prisons - LSW now roots a 'Linked Up Initiative' wherein determinedly interactive relationships with all UK drama schools/performing arts academies are fostered. For more detailed information on this telling adventure click here.
In creating this goal - and to find a marker to note LSW's 20th Birthday's threshold we coin -
a la the Bard himself - a new word. To 'LUP', an active verb meaning
'to bring disparate bodies together in hope'.
Through LUPPING we seek to highlight and continue to fulfil this particular incentive's moto;
one made up of two quotes from two different Shakespearean plays in order to create one full line of iambic.
'Make not your thoughts your prisons .. Thought IS free.'
Feedback from the first two LUP Tranches can be found here: LUP1 (2017) and LUP2 (2018)
Some incisive 2019 LUP Feedback can be found here, here and here.
DIGITAL PRODUCTION AND TRAINING
LSW Productions has also been responsible
for the independent production of eleven
half hour documentaries including the internationally acclaimed HOW DO YOU
KNOW
MY DAUGHTER? and KILLING BIRDS: ANIMATING MACBETHS
alongside twenty one shorts and the development of the successful 'Will to
Dream' Digital Video
Shooting and Editing Training Programmes.
GUEST ARTISTS
Among the huge number of talented
artists who have actively shared their gifts with LSW over the past 21 years are
Sir Jonathan Miller, Claire Bloom, Ruthie
Henshall,
Lynn Farleigh, Samuel West, Richard Dreyfus, Shelia Reid,
Dame Harriet Walter,
Peter Polycarpou, Fiona
Shaw, Giles Terera,
Phoebe Waller-Bridge, Clare Holman, Nichola McAuliffe,
Dame Janet Suzman, Sara Kestelman, Lisa Dillon, Edie Falco, Anna Maxwell Martin,
Sir Mark Rylance,
Cicely Berry,
Philip Voss, Rebecca Caine, Tyrone Huntley, Estelle Kohler, Frank
Wood, Juliet Stevenson, Dianne Pilkington,
David Tennant, Joseph Fiennes, Tom Hiddleston, Greg Hicks, Tom Burke, Barry Morse and
Sir Kenneth
Branagh.
LSW's projects have successfully raised
individual horizons and improved everyone's sense of self-esteem.
Who ever said poetry makes nothing happen. These people show everyone that
it does.
Rt. Hon. Dame Tessa Jowell, Former Minister, Culture, Media and Sport as
well as Former Olympics Minister
LSW is especially proud in its 21st
year to celebrate the
enormous contribution made to 'the dream that is LSW' by
all of its many supporters, (with special thanks to Mark Woodruff &
The Monument Trust one of the 13 Sainsbury Family Trusts and the
late Jane Attenborough &
the Paul Hamlyn Foundation). Most especially
LSW wishes to honour the
truly extraordinary
contributions made by LSW's
long standing Musical Director, the sadly late Tim Williams, and
LSW's noted and eternal advocate, the wonderful GAYLE HUNNICUTT
LSW is a Nationally Registered Charity
(No. 1084717)
with the Charities Commission of England and Wales
and an International Trust / Non-Profit Arts Organisation
registered with the IRS in the United States of America.
“LSW works at the highest level ….
What is most impressive is the commitment of the entire company
and its rare
passion for language”
Michael Billington, The Guardian
LSW Headquarter Contacts:
LSW, Post Office Box 31855, London SE17 3XP
Telephone: 0207 793 9755
Mobile: 07916149002
Email: londonswo@hotmail.com
LSW Webs: http://www.lswproductions.co.uk
http://www.londonshakespeare.org.uk
'We ARE such stuff as DREAMS are made ON.'