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LEWISTON — Director and playwright Michael Levine will discuss “Foul Papers and Bad Quartos: Shakespeare’s Changing Texts” Friday, Sept. 8, at 6 p.m. at the Lewiston Public Library, 200 Lisbon St. The free public program will take place in Callahan Hall.
Levine will note the various types of changes existing in some versions of Shakespeare’s better-known plays, examining several speeches from “Twelfth Night” to see how “The First Folio” version differs from several modern editions.
“Even the casual reader or theatergoer may notice small — and sometimes large — discrepancies between published and acting editions of most plays in the canon,” according to Levine. “While many of these changes have been made by modern editors, even in Shakespeare’s time it was difficult, if not impossible, to know what Shakespeare intended, since many of his plays in the best-known published version of “The First Folio” differ from the quartos and ‘foul papers’ that bear the playwright’s hand.”
Levine is the artistic director and founder of the Naked Shakespeare series, a group currently performing First Fridays at Mechanics Hall in downtown Portland. He has acted and directed with the company since its inception in 2004, including performance installations of “Cymbeline Underground” and “All’s Well on the Waterfront,” as well as traditional productions of “The War of the Roses” (based on the Henry VI cycle), “King Richard II” and “The Merchant of Venice.” He is also the co-founder of Oak Street Theatre and Acorn Productions, where he has taught acting and playwrighting in Portland for close to 20 years. Levine is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he studied playwrighting with A.R. Gurney, and acting with Kristen Linklater and Shakespeare and Company.
The library program is presented as part of the Lewiston Public Library’s Ye Olde Shakespeare Week. Other events include children’s stories and crafts, as well as free public performances of “Twelfth Night”by Gypsy Lew Theater Co. in Lewiston’s Dufresne Plaza on Lisbon Street.
For more information, call 207-513-3135 or e-mail LPLReference@Gmail.com.
