On 2nd August, Regent’s staff and students presented a new liturgy for voices at Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-Upon-Avon, to mark the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare’s death. The liturgy, called Seeing More Clearly with the Eyes of Love, combined words and ideas from Shakespeare’s own A Midsummer Night’s Dream with verses from the biblical love poem, the Song of Songs, and five newly-commissioned pieces by eminent poets based on characters from the play: Laurence Sail (Titania), Michael Symmons Roberts (Demetrius), Sinead Morrissey (Puck), Micheal O’ Siadhail (Helena) and Jenny Lewis (Bottom). The whole was intended to present an aspect of ‘Civic Shakespeare’, reflecting on the potentially transforming effect of love in civil society.
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