Overview

Join the National Library for the third illustrated Shakespeare lecture and discover the objects and stories that reveal how Shakespeare made landfall in Australia.

In the nineteenth century, Australia made and broke Shakespeare stars. Far from being disconnected from the rest of the world, the discovery of gold in 1850s made Australia a chief destination for international touring. Risking wide ocean, wild country, and hostile audiences, some companies learned, and others failed to make Shakespeare speak to an Australian imagination. Among the success stories were many intrepid women. By the outbreak of the Great War, Australia was exporting, importing and nurturing homegrown theatrical talent with the Shakespeare repertoire as a centrepiece.

The Library's collections preserve an extraordinary array of the physical remnants of Shakespeare performance in Australia—playbills, broadsides, portraits, photographs, manuscripts, music and more.

Dr Kate Flaherty (Australian National University), Dr Susannah Helman (National Library of Australia), Linda Bull (National Library of Australia), with actors from Bell Shakespeare illustrate this Shakespeare lecture and uncover the objects and stories that reveal how Shakespeare made landfall in Australia.