Shakespeare Hall of Fame

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's visitor centre at Stratford-upon-Avon in Warwickshire is creating an all-time Shakespeare Hall of Fame. Thirteen names in total will grace the walls, and you may be surprised who is included and who was left out. Certain individuals seem obvious: Ben Jonson, David Garrick, Laurence Olivier, Sam Wanamaker and Patrick Stewart. Other names might surprise, but certainly fit the bill, like Charles Dickens, Akira Kurosawa, Paul Robeson and Kenneth Branagh. Only two women were chosen: Ellen Terry and Judi Dench. Notable omissions include Helen Mirren, Simon Russell Beale and Edmund Kean. But the biggest travesty of all is the inclusion of Leonardo DiCaprio. Wait, what? Yes, you read that correctly. The Hollywood star who made a mediocre turn, at best, as Romeo in the over-the-top Baz Lurhmann film is one of the chosen few. No doubt it’s all about publicity, but seriously? There has got to be someone else. If you added them all up, you’ll notice that’s only 12. There is an online vote for the 13th slot. Click here to cast your ballet for people like Peter Brook, Sarah Bernhardt or John Gielgud (and maybe write in how DiCaprio should be removed).

Peter Brook Begins Hand Over of Bouffes du Nord

Legendary stage director, Peter Brook, now 83, will begin a “gradual transition from the inside”, resulting in handing over the reigns of the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord in 2010 to Olivier Mantei, deputy head of the Paris opera company Opéra-Comique and currently head of the musical programming at the Bouffes du Nord. Olivier Poubelle, a theatre entrepreneur specialising in modern music at some of Paris's most cutting-edge popular music venues, will work alongside him. The worn old theater, which Brook rescued from ruin in 1974, is where he has based his International Centre for Theatre Research.

Brook said: "I wanted to look very realistically to the future. I can't say I'll stay here forever. Everyone says something has been created almost invisibly in this theatre over 34 years. A lot of thought went into what would be the proper continuity. I didn't want to just place someone here and say, 'Here, take over.' I never talked about retirement as retirement is something forced on you by the state if you are unfortunate enough to work for the state. This has always been a private theatre… The first thing I wanted to establish – having spent all my life fighting against tradition and saying everything in the theatre must always be in a state of evolution, must always refuse to have a method, a way of working – was to avoid [appointing] a successor who would have to try and prove my line, which is against the whole life force of the theatre."

Read about here in English and here in French.

Brook does Dostoyevsky at NYTW

The Centre for International Theatre Creations/Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord and Theatre for a New Audience will co-present Marie-Hélène Estienne's adaptation of the Inquisitor section of Dostoyevsky's "The Brothers Karamazov”, directed by renowned director Peter Brook at New York Theater Workshop from October 22 – November 23, 2008. The production stars Bruce Myers, a long time collaborator of Brook.