Announcing Our Winter School on "As You Like It"!

The Chronicle Theatre Company's inaugural winter school will be held at SCRUM Studios, Hammersmith, on March 5th - 7th 2025.

“All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players…”

We are delighted to announce that, for the first time, The Chronicle Theatre Company will be running a winter school in addition to its summer school in 2025! This is in response to huge demand for more of our hands-on, rigorous, and practical work on Shakespeare following our summer school on King Lear in September of this year. The workshops will be led by our long-time collaborator, Michael Corbidge.

We thought long and hard about which play should inaugurate the winter schools, and finally decided that the best way to usher in the spring had to be As You Like It.

Written in a truly miraculous year of Shakespeare’s career, 1599 (alongside Julius Caesar, Henry V, and possibly an early draft of Hamlet), As You Like It brings together some of the best-loved elements of Shakespeare’s stagecraft. In the Forest of Arden, disguises abound as they do in Twelfth Night and The Merchant of Venice; there are skirmishes of wit that rival those of Much Ado About Nothing; it ricochets between satire, silliness, and sentiment like A Midsummer Night’s Dream. We at Chronicle love this play especially because it’s about acting, just as much as Hamlet is, with “All the world’s a stage” being as profound a reflection on theatre as Hamlet’s advice to the players. 

It is also one of Shakespeare’s tenderest love stories, which sees Rosalind gradually teaching Orlando what it is to be truly in love. It’s not all about pinning poetry to trees: it’s about opening up to one another and gradually finding a deep, mutual understanding. 

Above all, though, As You Like It is a play about forgiveness, reconciliation, and belonging. The Forest of Arden is a place where anyone and everyone can find a home, whatever home may mean to them.

We hope you’ll join us at SCRUM Studios for three days of intensive exploration of this extraordinary play.

Dates: 5th-7th March, 2025, 10:00-17:00

Location: SCRUM Studios, 191 Talgarth Rd, Hammersmith, London W6 8BJ

Cost per day: £80

To register, or for more information, please contact info@chronicletc.org.uk.

As part of the launch of our winter schools, we are also thrilled to announce the inaugural Julian Curry Bursary. Julian was one of the co-founders of The Chronicle Company, and he led a life dedicated to the theatre, and especially to Shakespeare. Julian made his professional debut walking on in Franco Zeffirelli’s production of Romeo and Juliet in 1961 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. During almost 60 years as an actor, he worked on stage in a wide variety of plays both classical and modern, for the RSC, the National Theatre and in London’s West End. His numerous Shakespeare roles included Angelo, Horatio, Macbeth, Polixenes, Lear’s Fool, Antonio in The Merchant of Venice, Oberon, York in Richard II, Malvolio, Cymbeline, Pandulph and Leontes.

The bursary will offer one prospective participant to take part in the winter school free of charge, and is available to drama school students, as well as to those whose opportunities to participate in theatre workshops would otherwise be limited. Applications for the bursary may be sent as part of a registration of interest in the winter school, and should briefly outline the applicant’s interest in participation, as well as their eligibility for the bursary. 

Shakespeare belongs to everyone, and it is our hope that the Julian Curry Bursary will allow us to make this a reality, at a time when connection, openness, and accessibility are more important than ever. 

The Julian Curry Bursary has been made possible thanks to the generous support of the John Armitage Charitable Trust.