Conversations and lectures

Which Shakespeare do we need today more than ever? How does he accompany us? What do different European cultures seek in him? We present a programme of conversations with very different voices, gathered around the work of William Shakespeare and its relationship with our present. Our paths converge in this Prelude Edition 2025, and at the crossroads awaits us, sarcastic and poetic, the greatest playwright of modern times.

Programme

Sunday, march 16th

20.30 h - Conversation: Current visions on Shakespeare. Teatre La Biblioteca
With Irina Brook (Dream Theatre) and Oriol Broggi (La Perla 29)
Right after "A Macbeth Song"
Inscriptions

• Irina Brook and Oriol Broggi will share their experiences directing Shakespeare and recalling productions that have particularly influenced them. How do they approach the playwright? What inspires them? What are they looking for in his work? A conversation between two renowned theatre directors who have found in Shakespeare a unique poetic universe full of life and theatre. 

Monday, march 17th

10.30 h - RESFN internal meeting.  Sala Noble - Institut Ramon Llull
ESFN members.

• An internal meeting of the European Shakespeare Festivals Network (ESFN). Focused on consolidating shared goals and coordinating future projects among European Shakespeare Festivals. 

16.30 h - Session: Imagining the new Shakespeare Festival Barcelona. Teatre La Biblioteca.
With national and international programmers and cultural agents. 

• A collaborative working session to share ideas on the future Barcelona Shakespeare Festival. Various cultural agents from across the country, together with programmers from Shakespeare festivals across Europe, will discuss programming interests and exchange views on the needs and opportunities that can be channelled into the future festival, with the aim of making it a true city-wide project. 

19.00 h - Public presentation of the ESFN in Barcelona. Teatre La Biblioteca
With Joanna Sniezko (PL), Philip Parr (UK) and Vlad Dragulescu (RO)
Followed by the show "Hamlet Double Bill"
Inscriptions

• What is the European Shakespeare Festivals Network (ESFN)? How is Shakespeare programmed in different European countries? How do they engage with the author? What scenic languages are they developing? We will talk with several ESFN programmers to share different cultural contexts, connect them with Catalonia, and explore the international network. 

Tuesday, march 18th

11.00h - Conversation: Shakespeare, tyranny and truth. CCCB - Sala del Mirador.
With Jordi Coca, Andreu Jaume, Isabel Guerrero.
Organised by La Perla Spectators’ Association (#AsSocPerla) & Institut d’Humanitats of Barcelona. 
Inscriptions

• Lies, fake news, corruption, hierarchical power structures, public frustrations… This is not a diagnosis of the present day, but a series of themes deeply embedded in the works of William Shakespeare. His theatre offers striking portrayals of tyrants and tyranny. How does the author depict them? How does he explain them? How are they challenged? Macbeth, Coriolanus, Richard III… In what context were they written? What contexts do they speak to today? We will discuss Shakespeare’s tyrants—childish yet dangerous figures who exist both within and beyond the fictional walls of the theatre. 

17.30h - Shakespeare, violence, and war. A coffee with...  Teatre La Biblioteca
Iryna Chuzhynova (Ukraninan Shakespeare Festival, UA), Andrea Jiménez (Casting Lear, ES).
Moderated by Cristina Genebat. 
Inscriptions

• When we met Iryna in Craiova (Romania), we were impressed by the clarity with which she articulated the contradictions faced by a team in Ukraine launching a Shakespeare Festival amid war: "Art, theatre, when it comes down to it, cannot save lives." Her questions are also ours. We must make the effort to translate experiences, and theatre helps us to do just that. But the world Shakespeare portrays is often deeply warlike and masculine. What Shakespeare does an audience overwhelmed by immediate violence need? To what extent can he help us imagine alternatives? What identities and silences do we bring to the stage? And what kind of relationship do we want to have with Shakespeare?