My gurus

Martin Wright
I would have dropped out of the University of Warwick at the end of my first year had it not been for Martin. His teaching sparked and then developed my interest in Elizabethan and Jacobean literature and drama. He taught me how to ‘read’ plays by Shakespeare and his contemporaries. His courses inspired me to embark on the Globe’s current 30 year project to stage performances with scripts of all the plays published between 1567 and 1660. I haven’t seen him for many years, but he remains a major influence
 

Sam Wanamaker
Sam dedicated the last 23 years of his life to building the Shakespeare Globe Centre, working tirelessly even when he knew he would not live to see it completed. He taught me that no one owns Shakespeare; that everyone should have the opportunity to meet his plays and can do so in a number of different ways. He established Globe Education eight years before the theatre opened so that it would help the Globe to become open to all. He believed the Globe would bring crowds back into the theatre for Shakespeare. I think and hope we are proving him right.

Ronald Watkins
Ronnie converted the Speech Room at Harrow School into an indoor Globe in 1941 for an annual Shakespeare production – a tradition that still continues. I met him 20 years after he had retired when he gave a talk about the relationship of Shakespeare’s plays to the Globe playhouse. I was enthralled by his ‘Globolatry’ and became a Globe missionary. I visited him once a month for dinner and animated sermon-conversation until his death in 2001.

Glynne Wickham
Glynne founded the UK’s first university drama department at Bristol. His books on Medieval and Elizabethan theatres were required reading at university. He cut a dashing figure even in his 70s and I was star-struck when I met him at the Globe in 1984. He was one of the first scholars to champion Sam’s project. He asked me to assist him with teaching the Globe’s first undergraduate course. I agreed on condition that I took the course with the students. His combination of theatre history, textual study and performance has provided the model for our undergraduate and MA courses at the Globe.

Stanley Wells CBE
One scholar has called him “Shakespeare’s advocate on earth”. He deserves a knighthood. He is one of the most distinguished and generous Shakespeare scholars in the business. He celebrates Shakespeare on stage as much as on the page, and cares for buildings as well as books. Former Director of the Shakespeare Institute, Trustee of the Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Rose, he is now Chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. He is always at the end of a phone or e-mail, ready to offer advice, support and encouragement. He spoke at the Globe this summer and a hundred 16 year-olds switched off their mobile phones.