THAW Fest: Master Class on Romeo + Juliet

Hamptons International Film Festival presents:

Hamptons Arts Network THAW Fest Event
Master Class on William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet

Saturday, March 24 | 4-5pm
Guild Hall of East Hampton

Tickets $25 | $23 Members of Guild Hall or HIFF

romeo juliet zeff romeo juliet luhrmann
Shakespeare scholar James Shapiro will compare select scenes from Baz Lurhmann’s 1996 ROMEO + JULIET to Franco Zefferelli’s version from 1968. The instructor will cover filmmaking and directing techniques, including camera placement and movement, blocking, lighting, acting and editing.

Learn from a master and then join the live production of the classic play that evening at Guild Hall.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, New York, James Shapiro studied at Columbia University and the University of Chicago. He is currently Larry Miller Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where he has taught since 1985. In 2011 James Shapiro was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

He is the author of multiple books on Shakespeare, including Rival Playwrights: Marlowe, Jonson, Shakespeare (1991); Shakespeare and the Jews (1996); 1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare (2005), Samuel Johnson Prize for the best non-fiction book published in Britain; Contested Will (2010), Theater Library Association’s George Freedley Memorial Award; and The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 (2015), James Tait Black Prize and the Sheridan Morley Prize.

His 3-hour documentary on late Shakespeare—The King and the Playwright—aired on BBC4 in 2012, and his The Mysterious Mr. Webster was on BBC2 in 2014.

He serves on the Board of Directors of the Royal Shakespeare Company, and he is currently the Shakespeare Scholar in Residence at the Public Theater in New York City. Shapiro also serves on the Board of Directors of the Authors Guild. In 2017, he was granted a Public Scholar Award by the NEH to write a book on Shakespeare in America.


HAN-8x4ins-v3About Hamptons Arts Network:

Nineteen not-for-profit organizations throughout the South Fork have joined forces to form the Hamptons Arts Network (HAN), designed to create a unified arts community in the Hamptons. The consortium’s goal is to promote collaboration, partnerships, and shared programming among its members, and to advocate for the arts in the areas of economic development, tourism, and education. HAN will create events to shine a light on the year-round cultural mecca located on Long Island’s East End.

As their first event, they are proud to announce THAW FEST, a Hamptons-wide weekend festival to celebrate spring and promote the broadly diverse range of cultural programs and institutions that make the South Fork of Long Island unique. The 2018 THAW FESTwill offer three days of exhibitions, theater performances, film, music, garden tours, workshops, community engagement and family-focused events.