For Information on LSW's
recent 2nd Tim
Williams Award Presentation - READINESS IS ALL,
at the Cochrane Theatre, including recorded highlights please
click here
London Shakespeare Workout (LSW)
LSW employs the works of Shakespeare
alongside those of other major
Dramatic/Cinematic & Musical writers and thinkers as a tool
towards effective interaction in order to (a) create new work
and (b) promote confidence through the will to dream for all.
Since 26th October 1997 LSW has (i) established the
hugely successful and unique 'Shakespeare
Workouts' (opened by Bruce Wall, LSW's Founder/Executive Director alongside
Dame Dorothy Tutin) involving the participation of over 12,000 professional
performers and 9,000 offenders/ex-offenders; (ii) given noted presentations/workshops in
venues
ranging from the House of Lords to the United Nations; from
Scotland Yard to Broadway and has (iii) established itself as an effective
producer
of quality
professional theatre in venues ranging from HMP Pentonville to the
Royal
Opera House;
from the Norwich Playhouse to the West End's Criterion and
Palladium Theatres; from the
beautiful 'Egg' at the Theatre Royal Bath in Somerset to the
Stephan Joseph Theatre in
North Yorkshire; from the Battersea Arts Centre to the Royal Shakespeare Company's
Swan Theatre
(Straford Upon Avon, UK) in an Educational launch with the RSC as well
as in incentives involving the Canadian Stratford Festival in Stratford, Ontario
to membership
in such European undertakings as the Prisons Arts Networks and the Will to Dream
Incentive
enjoying involvement in endeavours spanning Bulgaria, Slovakia, Austria, Spain,
Czech Republic and
Italy
to Ireland, the United States, Canada, Uganda, China and Norway among others. In tandem with
the London Business School, LSW has developed the successful Corporate programme (Willing Dreams)
successfully running activities for a wide range of major corporate entities
including
Sony-Ericsson, CelTel, Glaxo Smith Kline, the Metropolitan Police, Deutsche Bank
and Danone
and continues to operate Dramatic Workshops in a vast array of educational
organisations
ranging from a vast array of leading members of the Conference of Drama Schools
(CDS) to the Educational
Departments
within 97 different English Prisons; from the Liverpool Institute for the
Performing Arts
to Trinity College, Dublin; from an on-going relationship with BADA (the British
American
Drama Academy) to incentives involving both Cambridge (ETC & ADC) and Oxford
(OUDS) Universities
as well as multitudinous sessions involving students in schools at all levels
throughout the United Kingdom
(including sessions at such historic institutions
as Bedales, Uppingham, Kings and an on-going
programme of work with King Williams College on the Isle of Man and the McAuley
School in
Doncaster); from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art to a large number of
presentations for
organisations spanning The Young Presidents Association to Rainer's REST
(resettlement) initiatives
and both the Bath Shakespeare Festival and the Shakespeare Institute's British Shakespeare Conference.
Among the world premiere presentations LSW
has successfully produced are
VOICES (ROH, Oxford Playhouse, ADC); HOMAGE BEHIND (Criterion
Theatre);
ALBA (HMP Send & Criterion Theatre); BLACKING IAGO (HMP
Brixton, BBC2 &
National Theatres spanning Theatre Royal Bath to
Alnwick Playhouse); BLACK ATLAS
(appearing nationally
in theatres spanning Hull Truck to the Cambridge Arts Theatre) and the
original musical
LIFTING THE MASK (again appearing throughout UK's professional theatrical
venues and opening several new theatres as well). Celebrated original
versions
of Shakespeare's plays have also been presented including THE WAX KING (Henry VI, Pt. 3);
SHAKESPEARE 'N SINATRA (The Winter's Tale)
and ANIMATING MACBETHS as
wellas early productions of TWELTH NIGHT and ANTONY & CLEOPATRA.
In
2008
LSW presented the 90 minute ROUNDING SHAKESPEARE at the California
Mens Colony in California
about which a Los Angeles
Times feature was written,
photographs taken by the esteemed Georgia Oetker,
Robert Wilson's official photographer and a multitude of responses from the men
involved can be found here.
LSW Productions has also been responsible
for the independent production of eight
half hour documentaries including the internationally acclaimed HOW DO YOU
KNOW
MY DAUGHTER? and KILLING BIRDS: ANIMATING MACBETHS
alongside seventeen shorts and the development of the successful 'Will to
Dream' Digital Video
Shooting and Editing Training Programmes.
Among the huge number of talented
artists who have actively
shared their gifts with LSW over the past 10 years are Sir Jonathan Miller, Claire Bloom, Ruthie
Henshall,
Lynn Farleigh, Samuel West, Richard Dreyfus, Shelia Reid, Harriet Walter, Fiona
Shaw,
Clare Holman, Nichola McAuliffe, Janet Suzman, Anna Maxwell Martin, Mark Rylance,
Cicely Berry, Philip Voss, Juliet Stevenson, Barry Morse and Kenneth
Branagh.
LSW’s projects have successfully raised individual horizons and improved everyone's sense of self-esteem. Who ever said poetry makes nothing happen? These people show everyone that it does!
Rt. Hon. Tessa Jowell, Former Minister, Culture, Media and Sport
LSW is especially proud in its 11th
year to celebrate the
enormous contribution made to 'the dream that is LSW' by
all of its many supporters, (with special thanks to Mark Woodruff &
The Sainsbury Family Trusts and the late Jane Attenborough &
the Paul Hamlyn Foundation), and most especially to honour the
extraordinary
contributions made by LSW's Musical Director, the sadly late Tim Williams, and
LSW's noted and eternal advocate, the wonderful GAYLE HUNNICUTT
LSW is a Nationally Registered Charity
(No. 1084717)
with the Charities Commission of England and Wales
and an International Trust / Non-Profit Arts Organisation
registered with the IRS in the United States of America.
“LSW works at the highest level ….
What is most impressive is the commitment of the entire company
and its rare
passion for language”
Michael Billington, The Guardian
LSW Headquarter Contacts:
LSW, Post Office Box 31855, London SE17 3XP
Telephone: 0207 793 9755
Mobile: 07916149002
Email: lswprison@europe.com
LSW Webs: http://www.lswproductions.co.uk
http://www.londonshakespeare.org.uk