American Shakespeare Center To Host 'ShakesFear' Book Signing

The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) will host a book signing of co-founder Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen's book "ShakesFear and How to Cure It" on Wednesday, September 12 at 5:30pm at the Blackfriars Playhouse. At the signing, Professor Cohen, using scenes from As You Like It, will demonstrate how Shakespeare's language is our own. The event is open to all.

For all lovers of Shakespeare, "ShakesFear" provides a lively overview of each of Shakespeare's 38 plays, while it gives teachers successful classroom tools for teaching Shakespeare and helping students to find delight in the plays. The book refutes the idea that Shakespeare's language is difficult and provides a survey of the plays by Cohen who has lived intimately with them on the page and on the stage for over 40 years.

Cohen is co-founder and director of mission at the American Shakespeare Center, Emeritus Professor of English at James Madison University, and currently Gonder Professor of Shakespeare at Mary Baldwin College, where he founded the graduate program in Shakespeare and Performance. He was the 2008 recipient of the Commonwealth Governor's Arts Award with fellow ASC co-founder Jim Warren. In 2009, he was the Theo Crosby Fellow at Shakespeare's Globe in London. In 2013, Folger Shakespeare Library awarded him and the ASC its Shakespeare Steward Award. In 2014, he was the first American to be awarded the Globe's Sam Wanamaker award for pioneering work in Shakespearean theatre.

"ShakesFear" is published by The Arden Shakespeare, a label of Bloomsbury Publishing. It is available for purchase in person at both ASC gift shops or online at various retailers.

The American Shakespeare Center recovers the joys and accessibility of Shakespeare's theatre, language, and humanity by exploring the English Renaissance stage and its practices through performance and education. Year-round in Staunton's Blackfriars Playhouse - the world's only re-creation of Shakespeare's indoor theatre - the ASC's innovative programming and "shamelessly entertaining" (The Washington Post) productions have shared the delights of Shakespeare, modern classics and new plays with millions over the past 30 years. Beyond the Playhouse, the ASC is a hub for Shakespeare education and scholarship and also tours from Texas to Maine each year with a repertory of three plays. Founded in 1988 as Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, the organization became the American Shakespeare Center in 2005 and can be found online at www.americanshakespearecenter.com and on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.