About The Event
September 28th, 2021 - Zoom
Casting is how we rehearse change, as we come to see an expanded repertoire of the kinds of bodies that are selected to play the lead, the hero, and the villain. This talk will examine the casting in several key productions of Shakespeare from 2017–2020 to demonstrate how casting functions affectively and cognitively to reimagine who can be what.
This event is presented by: The Lab at the Stratford Festival (@stratfestLAB), the York Research Chair in Theatre and Performance and the Department of Theatre in the School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design at York University.
Amy Cook is the author of Shakespearean Futures: Casting the Bodies of Tomorrow on Shakespeare’s Stages Today (Elements, Cambridge Press 2021), Building Character: The Art and Science of Casting (University of Michigan Press 2018), Shakespearean Neuroplay: Reinvigorating the Study of Dramatic Texts and Performance through Cognitive Science (Palgrave Macmillan 2010), and co-editor (with Rhonda Blair) of Theatre, Performance and Cognition (Methuen 2016). She’s quite pleased to somehow have chapters in The Oxford Handbook of Dance and Theater (2015), The Oxford Handbook of 4E Cognition (2018), The Routledge Companion to Theatre, Performance, and Cognitive Science, (2018), The Cambridge Companion of Shakespeare’s Language (2019), and The Cambridge Companion to Theatre and Science (2020). She is the Associate Dean for Research and Innovation and a Professor of English at Stony Brook University.