Reprint of the original, first published in 1882.

The search to find engaging and inspiring ways to introduce children and young adults to Shakespeare has resulted in a rich variety of approaches to producing and adapting Shakespeare's plays and the stories and characters at their heart. Shakespeare for Young People is the only comprehensive overview of such productions and adaptations, and engages with a wide range of genres, including both British and American examples. Abigail Rokison covers stage and screen productions, shortened versions, prose narratives and picture books (including Manga), animations and original novels. The book combines an informative guide to these interpretations of Shakespeare, discussed with critical analysis of their relative strengths. It also includes extensive interviews with directors, actors and writers involved in the projects discussed'.

What is the value of performing Shakespeare's plays for young people? Using interviews with theatre workers, rehearsal observations and workshops with young people, this book argues that, rather than promoting a range of pre-determined textual understandings of the plays, it is by trusting young people's experience of performances that they might gain most benefit. It argues that by privileging the meanings young people make of Shakespeare, new and exciting interpretations of his work might be found. Drawing on case studies from theatre companies such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, The Hip-Hop Shakespeare Company, Tiny Ninja Theatre Company and Company of Angels Theatre Company, Jan Wozniak shows how the collaboration and materiality of performance is central to empowering young people to engage with, enjoy and challenge Shakespeare.

Drama and the Politics of Generational Conflict in Shakespeare’s England examines the intersection between art and culture and explains how ideas about age circulated in early modern England. Stephannie Gearhart illustrates how a variety of texts – including drama by Shakespeare, Jonson, and Middleton – placed elders’ and youths’ voices in dialogue with one another to construct the period’s ideology of age and shape elder-youth relations.

Reading Shakespeare through Drama arises out of case study research which focuses on reading as a socio-cultural practice. Underpinned by theories of reading, learning, drama and play, it is, nevertheless, rooted in the everyday work of secondary English classrooms. Utilising the dialogic ambiguities inherent in Shakespeare's playscripts, this collaborative approach to reading pays particular attention to adolescent readers as meaning-makers and cultural producers. The authors examine different iterations of 'active Shakespeare' pedagogies in the UK, the USA and Australia, drawing a distinction between 'reading through drama' as an approach and the theatre inflected practices promoted by well-known arts-based institutions. Observational and interview data highlight the importance of addressing issues concerning identity and representation that are inevitably raised by the study of canonical literature. Importantly, this Element situates teachers' practice within broader ideological contexts at institutional and national policy level, particularly from the perspective of England's highly regulated system of schooling.

This book offers fresh, critical insights into Shakespeare in Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan. It recognises that Shakespeare in East Asian education is not confined to the classroom or lecture hall but occurs on diverse stages. It covers multiple aspects of education: policy, pedagogy, practice, and performance. Beyond researchers in these areas, this book is for those teaching and learning Shakespeare in the region, those teaching and learning English as an Additional Language anywhere in the world, and those making educational policies, resources, or theatre productions with young people in East Asia.

The Arts and Youth at Risk: Global and Local Challenges is a contribution to the lively international dialogue about creative and arts-based interventions for young people categorized as “at risk”. It contains chapters written by internationally recognized researchers and practitioners in arts education, youth arts and criminology. The instrumental benefit of arts participation for disadvantaged and marginalized young people is an area of increasing interest worldwide. This body of research highlights the positive educational and social outcomes of arts programs within and outside the schooling system. It also interrogates the ethics of arts interventions in a diverse and socially inequitable global context. The book questions the motivations of those working with “at risk” youth and challenges practitioners to ensure that their work with marginalised communities is efficacious as well as socially and politically responsible. Professor Shirley Brice Heath describes this book as “philosophically complex and pragmatically provocative”. She commends the editors and authors for taking “the brave stance of interrogating the consequences, trajectories, and effects of participation in the arts by young people – especially those who carry labels such as at risk.” She calls attention to the critical need as outlined in this volume to consider contextual background as well as an international perspective on children and youth when planning and delivering social and arts-based interventions.

Original Scholarly Monograph