Shakespeare Schools Festival
MALAWI

(The Virtual Festival)

The Fourth Festival - 2020

Welcome & Takulandirani to our Fourth Festival!

 

This year - like many other Festivals around the world - our proceedings are perforce virtual. We hope you will enjoy the following productions, which were filmed on location at participating schools in November 2020. Some two hundred and thirty young people and their teachers, from eight schools (including two deaf) and two youth groups, are involved.

 

Plays will become available at the stated time (CAT) and will remain online after the Festival. (Click the window to open and enlarge.) Each is introduced by a Sonnet read by a member of the Kamuzu Academy Drama Club. (Click the separate link.)

 

Your host is Mr. Peter Phiri, alumnus of All Saints' Mtunthama CDSS and Director of WashBetter (Malawi)...

Click here to download a copy of the Festival poster (.pdf).

v_ssf_mw_iv_poster

Florilegium & YouTube Playlist

Please follow the Programme below or...

 

... Click here to watch a Florilegium of the whole Festival (43:38).

 

It offers speeches, sonnets and (excerpts from) the ten plays, together with photographs of presentation ceremonies.

 

The YouTube playlist is available here.

Day
Hour
Minute
Second

Saturday, 28th November
12.30 p.m.

Mr. Andrew Wild (Headmaster, Kamuzu Academy) introduces the Fourth Festival here (04:25).

 

Miss Alisoun Probert (United Kingdom) welcomes our Deaf Friends in Sign (01:31).

v_ssf_mw_iv_chilembwe

Chilembwe (00:51), the Roan Antelope of Gule Wamkulu (the Great Dance of the Chewa People of Malawi), consecrates the beginning of each recording.

1.00 p.m.

Sonnet I

 

All Saints' Mtunthama CDSS
Macbeth

 

21:13

1.30 p.m.

Sonnet XVIII

 

Chayamba Secondary School
As You Like It

 

33:00

2.00 p.m.

Sonnet XXIII

 

Chayamba Secondary School (Special Needs Unit)
'President Lenwick' (Signed)

 

16:41

2.30 p.m.

Sonnet XXIV

 

Chimbowe Primary School
Macbeth

 

18:11

'President Lenwick'. Click here to see Miss Alisoun Probert's adaptation of King Lear for a signed performance. This is a brief video clip (05:59) of the work in rehearsal by deaf pupils of Chayamba Secondary School (November 2020).

3.00 p.m.

Sonnet XXVII

 

Destiny Drama Club (Mtunthama)
The Comedy of Errors

 

17:24

3.30 p.m.

Sonnet LXXI

 

Kamuzu Academy
Othello

 

26:14

4.00 p.m.

Sonnet CIV

 

Lotus Cultural Team (Lilongwe)
The Merchant of Venice

 

26:10

4.30 p.m.

Sonnet CXVI

 

Mlare Private Secondary School
The Merchant of Venice

 

27:44

5.00 p.m.

Sonnet CXXX

 

Mtunthama Primary School
The Tempest

 

15:34

5.30 p.m.

Sonnet CXXXVI

 

Mua School for the Deaf
'Prince and Kondana' (Signed)

 

22:22

'Prince and Kondana'. Click here to see Miss Alisoun Probert's adaptation of The Taming of the Shrew for a signed performance. This is a brief video clip (01:50) of the work in rehearsal by pupils of Mua School for the Deaf (November 2020).

Saturday, 28th November
6.00 p.m.

Mr. Richard L. Hewitt (Director) concludes the Fourth Festival here (04:55).

v_ssf_mw_iv_chilembwe

Chilembwe (00:51), the Roan Antelope of Gule Wamkulu (the Great Dance of the Chewa People of Malawi), consecrates the end of each recording.

Donate to the Shakespeare Festival and WashBetter (Malawi)

Click here (JustGiving) to be part of our work! Funds raised support the Festival.

 

A proportion supports also the work of WashBetter (Malawi), which, in this time of ongoing pandemic (2020), extends materials and an educational programme in sanitation to participating schools.

 

Mr. Peter Phiri, your host, offers a short account of existing work by WashBetter funded through the Festival here (1:51).

washbetter_02

Après-Festival

The Festival was taken to pupils of participating schools on dedicated visits in early December. Films were shown, certificates and books presented, and cold drinks enjoyed.

(Right) Mr. Peter Phiri presented certificates. Ceremonies are photographed alongside.

Florilegium & YouTube Playlist

Please follow the Programme above or...

 

... Click here to watch a Florilegium of the whole Festival (43:38).

 

It offers speeches, sonnets and (excerpts from) the ten plays, together with photographs of presentation ceremonies.

 

The YouTube playlist is available here.

Report

The Director's report on the Festival is available here (.pdf).

Contact & Cetera

Click here to make any comment and / or to ask any question!

Zikomo kwambili
(and Baie dankie, Spasibo bolshoe, Many thanks)... 

... to the following who have supported our Festival:

 

Kamuzu Academy, Malawi and the Shakespeare Schools Festival - South Africa

 

Russia and South Africa: Ms. Kseniya Filinova-Bruton

 

United Kingdom: Mrs. Karen Hayes, Mr. and Mrs. Jeffrey Hewitt, Prof. Maurice Hindle, Miss Alisoun Probert and Mr. Glynn Ridge

Chayamba Secondary School rehearses As You Like It (November 2020).

Shakespeare Schools Festival - South Africa

In September 2020 the Shakespeare Schools Festival - South Africa celebrated its own virtual Festival.

 

Click here to see what was achieved (.pdf)!

(Right) Emmanuel Sogolera (Kamuzu Academy Drama Club) represents Malawi with his own Chichewa version of 'All the world's a stage' (As You Like It) as part of a 'lockdown' project (April 2020) of the South African Festival to collect versions of this speech in as many languages of the world as possible.

shakespeare.fritillary.org
05/12