Tricks of Desire: A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Two Noble Kinsmen

16-25 July 2025

Since classical antiquity, the Mediterranean has been a breeding ground for cultural formation and transformation, extraordinarily capitalised on by Shakespeare, who set many of his plays there, re-elaborating narratives, cultural models, theatregrams, epistemological perspectives, and visual and material art forms. In turn, Italy and the other Mediterranean cultures are nowadays responding to the aesthetic and cultural stimuli of those plays, with ever new interpretations and reinterpretations.

The SaM Summer School will approach Shakespeare and the Mediterranean from a double perspective that integrates source studies and performance studies: from the Mediterranean sources of Shakespeare to Shakespeare as a source of new adaptations and rewritings in the heart of the Mediterranean. The fifth edition will concentrate on A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Two Noble Kinsmen.

Wonderful things happen in Shakespeare’s Athens. In both A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Two Noble Kinsmen, the powerful effects of eros are explored, and romantic comedy is tinged with problematic, darker hues. Classical myths become enmeshed with medieval tales, and early modern concerns about subjectivity, power, gender, and social class are investigated in a kaleidoscopic multiplication of perspectives and with the magic of theatre. Experience the enchantment of love and mistaken identities in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, a one-of-a-kind comedy where fairies and mortals collide in a potentially disturbing, potentially revelatory adventure. And dive into the tale of homosocial rivalry and brotherhood in Shakespeare and Fletcher’s lesser-known tragicomedy The Two Noble Kinsmen, where love, loyalty, and fate intertwine in a thrilling drama of honour and passion.

Director: Silvia Bigliazzi
 
Scientific Committee: Chiara Battisti, Silvia Bigliazzi, Sidia Fiorato, Cristiano Ragni, Emanuel Stelzer
 
Organising Committee: Simona Brunetti, Vlado Jelcic, Beatrice Righetti, Roberta Zanoni

For information please write to: skene@ateneo.univr.it

 

Participants in the summer school are free to choose in-person or remote attendance (group A only). Minimum attendance: 80%. Participants will be divided into three groups:

  • BA students (third year and near-graduates); Master’s and Doctoral students, as well as schoolteachers (Group A). Students of group A should have at least a B2 level in English.
  • Acting School students and graduates as well as performers (Group B).
  • Journalists, writers, dramaturgs, directors, theatre critics, students and professionals in media and communication, literature students (Group C).

The summer school is designed as a cycle of lectures and workshops offered in a face-to-face environment or as synchronous online teaching (only for Group A activities). Participants in group A are free to choose the most suitable mode. Students of group A will receive some study material by 15 June 2025. 

From 17 to 24 July the fifth edition of the Verona Shakespeare Fringe (VSF) will take place at the Teatro Ss Trinità in Monte Oliveto. The VSF will be ushered in by Lisa Wolpe’s Winter’s Tale on 16 July. Attendance to the shows (from 16 to 24 July) and the Q&A sessions is compulsory for the students of the summer school. 

The Summer School will admit up to 75 participants (35 in Group A, 30 in Group B and 10 in Group C)

Classes will be held in English. Minimum attendance: 80% on site (or online for group A students).

Participants can book their accommodation independently, taking into account that the summer school activities will take place in the following locations:

In March possibilities for scholarships covering the costs of accommodation will be announced.

Some options for independent booking:

Applications are open and will close on 5 May 2025.

Admitted candidates will be notified by 15 May 2025. Candidates will need to confirm their participation by 20 May 2025.

People on the waiting list will be contacted by 31 May 2025.

The deadline for the tuition fee payment is 10 June 2025. Withdrawals will be accepted within 7 days of the date of the payment.

End-of-course essays will be due by 31 October 2025.

Group A programme

Group B programme

Group C programme

Application

VSF

VSF – Q&As

Staff

Chiara Battisti (University di Verona)

Jaq Bessell (GSA, University of Surrey)

Silvia Bigliazzi (University of Verona)

Victoria Bladen (University of Queensland)

John Blondell (Westmont College and Lit Moon Theatre Company, Santa Barbara CA)

Piero Boitani (Sapienza University of Rome)

Simona Brunetti (University of Verona)

Fernando Cioni (University of Florence)

Andrea Coppone (Performer)

Tania Demetriou (University of Cambridge)

 

Paul Edmondson (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon)

Sidia Fiorato (University of Verona)

Jason Lawrence (University of Hull)

Cristiano Ragni (University of Verona)

Beatrice Righetti (University of Verona)

Emanuel Stelzer (University of Verona)

Stanley Wells (Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, Stratford-upon-Avon)

Lisa Wolpe (Performer)

Roberta Zanoni (University of Verona)

In collaboration with:

  • The Shakespeare Institute, University of Birmingham
  • Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
  • Cambridge University
  • Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey
  • Faculty of Dramatic Arts – University of Belgrade
  • Westmont College, Santa Barbara (CA)
  • Teatro Ristori
  • Teatro Stabile Fondazione Atlantide 
  • Conservatorio Dall’Abaco di Verona
  • Ippogrifo produzioni
  • MyPlanet 2050
  • Teatro Scientifico/Teatro Laboratorio