LIVE from the NYPL: Margaret Atwood | Fiona Shaw

Four hundred years after William Shakespeare’s death, Margaret Atwood retells one of his most beloved plays, The Tempest, with a dark and fantastical interpretation in her new book, Hag-Seed. She is joined by actress Fiona Shaw on the LIVE stage, in celebration of the Bard and his influence on their work. 

MARGARET ATWOOD, a 2014 Library Lion, is the author of more than forty books of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her MaddAddam trilogy – the Giller and Booker prize-nominated Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013) – is currently being adapted for HBO.  Her most recent non-fiction books include Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth (2008) and In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination (2011).  Her novels include The Blind Assassin, winner of the Booker Prize; Alias Grace, which won the Giller Prize in Canada and the Premio Mondello in Italy; and The Robber Bride, Cat’s Eye, The Handmaid’s Tale – coming soon as a TV series with MGM and Hulu – and The Penelopiad.  Her new novel, The Heart Goes Last, was published in September 2015. Forthcoming in 2016 are Hag-Seed, a novel revisitation of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest, for the Hogarth Shakespeare Project, and Angel Catbird – with a cat-bird superhero – a graphic novel with co-creator Johnnie Christmas (Dark Horse). Margaret Atwood lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

FIONA SHAW is one of the foremost artists of the London stage, who has led a number of major productions in London and New York for the past thirty years. She starred in The Testament of Mary on Broadway; Medea on both Broadway and the West End (Tony Nomination for Best Actress, 2002); The Waste Land (New York Critics Award Winner, 1996); ); Hedda Gabler (London Critics Award Winner, 1992);  and Happy Days at both the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) and at the National Theater; Machinal (Olivier Award and Evening Standard Theatre Award Winner, 1994); John Gabriel Borkman at BAM; and Electra (Olivier Award Winner, 1989-90). In 2013, she performed in The Rime of the Ancient Mariner at BAM to universal critical acclaim. She has also had a long-standing relationship with the National Theatre in London, having performed in London Assurance, Scenes from an Execution, The Good Person of Szechwan (Olivier Award Winner, 1989-90), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, and The Way of the World, among others. The works of Shakespeare have played a significant role in Fiona’s career, including her 1989 Olivier Award-winning performance in As You Like It for the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). She has collaborated with the RSC multiple times, including productions of The Taming of the Shrew, The Merchant of Venice, and Much Ado About Nothing. She additionally starred in Richard II at the National Theater, and in Paris and Salzberg; Julius Caesar at the Barbican in London; and Hamlet for director John Lynch at the Abbey in Dublin.

A note to our patrons: LIVE from the NYPL programs begin promptly at 7p.m. We recommend arriving twenty minutes before the scheduled start time to get to your seats. In order to minimize disturbances to other audience members, we are unable to provide late seating.

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This event is part of Shakespeare Lives, a year-long global program celebrating the continuing resonance of Shakespeare around the world led by the British Council and the GREAT Britain campaign.

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