Action Shakespeare

Shakespeare & Environmental Justice

The Globe4Globe 2025 symposium draws together scholars, practitioners, activists and educators to explore how Shakespeare’s works relate to ideas of environmental justice historically and in the present. The 24-hour symposium will feature voices from across the globe working at the intersection of Shakespeare, performance and environmental justice. Action Shakespeare Director Rob Conkie will be speaking, with the expert collaborative assistance of professors Ben Stickels, David Janowiak and Roxanne Wellington, at this event on Friday, Sept. 12, 2025 at 11 a.m. 

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Shakespeare’s Sass

This one-woman show – devised and directed by Rob Conkie, assistant directed by Elle Bilips, and performed by Ariana Zappley – will be rehearsing on Monday nights and will go into schools.

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Enter Nurse, or Love’s Labor’s Won

Professor Scott Maisano of the University of Massachusetts (Boston) has commissioned Action Shakespeare to make a short film of one scene from his play Enter Nurse, a sequel to Shakespeare’s Love’s Labor’s Lost (and a prequel to Romeo and Juliet). The film will be screened at the 2026 Shakespeare Association of America conference in Denver, CO.

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Othello

Last year, the Action Shakespeare troupe took scenes from Othello into Garinger High School. We are looking to do this again. Stay tuned…

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Casting Call

Fourth-year film directing student Minh Ngo from UNC School of the Arts is casting UNC Charlotte acting and Shakespeare students in his thesis film – The Odyssemen, an absurdist Shakespearean epic. In a collaboration between artists and the two schools, Ngo says, “I would love to potentially collaborate with the talented actors from UNC Charlotte and believe that we will have a delightful time!” Details posted outside the Action Shakespeare office (Robinson Hall 365).

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Excursions

Led by Professor Kirk Melnikoff, chair of English, and largely funded by Mr. Twig Branch, 12 English and Theatre majors will visit the Stratford Festival in Ontario, Canada, Sept. 12-15, 2025. A highlight promises to be legendary auteur Robert Lepage’s production of Macbeth.

And led by Professor Janowiak, chair of Theatre, 24 theatre students and eight faculty will visit the American Shakespeare Center Nov. 1-2, 2025. There will be heartbreak, dogs, pirates, and music!

Shakespeare in Action was established by Dr. Andrew Hartley, UNC Charlotte’s first Robinson Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare Studies, with Professor of English Kirk Melnikoff. SIA’s activities are funded in part by the chaired position’s endowment. In Spring 2022, Dr. Hartley retired from UNC Charlotte, and in Fall 2023, the College of Arts + Architecture welcomed Dr. Rob Conkie as the new Robinson Distinguished Professor of Shakespeare Studies, who changed the name to Action Shakespeare.

Between 2010 and 2016, SIA’s various activities coalesced into a single project called “36 in 6” (see more below), the mission of which was to host an event connected to each play in the Shakespeare canon in the 6-year period leading up to the 400^th anniversary of his death on April 23rd, 2016. In keeping with SIA’s previous work, these events took different forms—lectures by professors with particular expertise in the selected play, staged readings, theatre department productions, and guest productions—all culminating in a gala event built around As You Like It.

SIA was on hiatus for the 2016-17 academic year while Dr. Hartley was away on reassignment of duties. In 2017-18 SIA helped fund the Actors From the London Stage’s visiting production of Measure for Measure, and donated scholarship money to the Shakespeare in England study abroad course. In Fall 2018, the Department of Theatre presented Twelfth Night, directed by Dr. Hartley and in Fall 2021 produced the audio play, The Corona Caesar, adapted and directed by Dr. Hartley.

During the 2022 Spring semester, prior to retiring from UNC Charlotte, Dr. Hartley organized “Shakespeare and Inclusivity: a semester-long case study of The Merchant of Venice.” The project included lectures, public readings, a workshop, a film screening, and a study tour to Washington, D.C.