We are building a new website. Try it now and give us your feedback. Explore the beta site.
Tickets for this event have sold out. If you would like to join the waitlist, please click the 'book now' button and follow the prompts.
Join Dr Kate Flaherty, senior Lecturer in English and Drama at ANU, and actors from Bell Shakespeare as they uncover one of the most amusing and successful literary hoaxes of all time. Hear the voices of those who were fooled and those who were not, and ponder the question: can fake art have real merit?
The event will be introduced by Dr Susannah Helman, National Library Curator of Rare Books and Music, who will speak about the items in the Library's collection.
Entry is free to this event but bookings are essential.
The talk will be available to view live online via the Library's Facebook and YouTube pages. You do not need to book a ticket to watch the event online.
This event is presented in partnership with the Australian National University (ANU) and Bell Shakespeare.
About Dr Kate Flaherty
Kate Flaherty is a Senior Lecturer in English and Drama at ANU. Her current book project investigates how female performers have shaped political modernity. Her first book, Ours as We Play it: Australia Plays Shakespeare (2011), looks at Shakespeare in performance in Australia. Other articles and chapters explore the public interplay of Shakespeare’s drama with education, gender, imperialism and riot in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Among her many publications are articles for The Conversation and The Guardian. Kate was 2019 winner of the ANU Vice Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Education and is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.
About the Bell Shakespeare actors
Jo Turner
Jo Turner is an actor, stage and screen director, writer, teacher, communications coach and facilitator. A graduate of Melbourne University and the Ecole Jacques Lecoq, he has worked nationally and internationally in the Performing Arts industry for 30 years. Credits include (for Bell Shakespeare): Director, Macbeth Undone (AAW); Actor, The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra, Twelfth Night (replacement). Other work: Actor, The Resistance (ATYP), Evie May (Hayes), Hysteria (Eternity), Railway Wonderland (NORPA), The Ugly One (Griffin), Ruby Moon, Thyestes, Howard Katz (STC), The 39 Steps (Kay & McLean), Somewhere (Q Theatre), The Caucasian Chalk Circle (Belvoir), Emma’s Nose (La Boite), Plainsong (Black Swan); as Director, Small Mouth Sounds, The Hypochondriac, Deathtrap (Eternity). Puss in Boots (Recital Hall), Avenue Q (Enmore); The Graduate, Waiting for Godot (AD) (Kay & McLean); Peter and the Wolf (SOH); Stolen (STC). Director/Writer:The Girl Who Glows (Street); Ruby’s Wish (Belvoir/ACM/SOH); The Betoota Advocate Roadshow (TEG Dainty); Prison Songs (Darwin Fest); The Grief Parlour (Clockfire); Fools Island (STC).
Emily Edwards
Emily Edwards (she/her) is a graduate of the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (Acting) and is the Resident Artist in Education at Bell Shakespeare. Some of her stage credits include a National Tour with The Players (Bell Shakespeare), Feste in Twelfth Night (Dir Tom Wright), The Young Wife in Hello Again (Dir Tyran Parke), Abigail in The Crucible (Dir Terri Brabon, Theatre iNQ), Fiona Carter in The Removalists (Dir Elsie Edgerton-Till, Sydney Theatre Company), and Kapowi in Kapowi Go-Go (Dir Rachel Kerry, Kings Cross Theatre). Her screen credits include Alive with Curiosity with Tourism Queensland, and Home and Away. In addition to performing, Emily has been a teaching artist for over 10 years, having worked with Bell Shakespeare, The Australian Shakespeare Company, Theatre iNQ, Poetry in Action and running an independent singing studio.
About Dr Susannah Helman
Dr Susannah Helman is the Rare Books and Music Curator at the National Library of Australia. She has worked at the National Library of Australia since 2009, until 2021 in the Exhibitions Section. She curated or co-curated exhibitions including Handwritten (2011), Mapping our World (2013–2014), The Sell (2016–2017), Cook and the Pacific (2018–2019) and On Stage (2022). She has a PhD in History from the University of Queensland.
Image credit: Samuel Ireland (etcher), Portrait of William Shakespeare (detail) in W.H. Ireland, Miscellaneous Papers and Legal Instruments Under the Hand and Seal of William Shakspeare, 1796, nla.cat-vn482564