Announcing our new Co-Directors of Education
Professor Farah Karim-Cooper and Lucy Cuthbertson take the helm of our world-leading Education department
As the doors to our Globe Theatre have reopened after over a year of closure, we are so pleased to announce the new Co-Directors of our world-leading Education department, Professor Farah Karim-Cooper and Lucy Cuthbertson.
Farah and Lucy take on the position of leading the largest Education department in a theatre in the country, after Patrick Spottiswoode, who served as the Director and Founder of Globe Education for 37 years, confirmed his retirement last summer. Starting 14 years before the completion of the Globe, Patrick was one of a small team dedicated to keeping alive Sam Wanamaker’s dream of a reconstructed Globe theatre at the heart of an educational and artistic centre in Southwark.
Lucy Cuthbertson and Professor Farah Karim-Cooper are the new Co-Directors of our world-leading Education department.
“As we reopen the Globe Theatre after over a year of closure, it is fantastic to announce our new Co-Directors of Education, both of which have led the department through our hardest year increasing engagement in Shakespeare in so many new ways across the world. The Globe is so fortunate to have Lucy and Farah’s outstanding combined experience at the helm of our much admired and appreciated education department and supporting the Globe’s longer term creative and artistic planning”
— Neil Constable, CEO Shakespeare’s Globe
Farah and Lucy have been at the forefront of keeping the nation engaged with Shakespeare in all ways online during the past year.
Events over UK lockdown included: live and interactive storytelling sessions with families joining all around the world and study workshops launched online to help support teenagers missing school. As part of anti-racist approaches to Shakespeare, there was a digital festival of work and newly created workshops for children, students, teachers and staff looking at ways to decolonise Shakespeare.
“Having been part of this organisation and this department for the last 17 years, it’s an honour to be able to step up to co-direct Education. I know the important legacy of this department and its groundbreaking projects and programmes. I am committed to ensuring Education at Shakespeare’s Globe continues being a leader in generating lifelong learning through Shakespeare and his theatres and I look forward to co-steering it in new directions with community engagement, performance, scholarship, anti-racism and social justice as its guiding principles”
— Professor Farah Karim-Cooper
The success of education from the Globe ensured that family work reached 31 different countries, and nearly 2,000 families. Over 500 teachers took part in online Continuing Professional Development sessions. Our YouTube release of Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank production of Romeo and Juliet for students and teachers has been watched over 340,000 times. A live online storytelling of The Winter’s Tale simultaneously reached more than 1,500 students in over 10 schools, amounting to almost a full house in the Globe Theatre.
Our YouTube release of Playing Shakespeare with Deutsche Bank: Romeo and Juliet, created especially for for students and young people, has been watched over 340,000 times.
Our Higher Education programme converted its provision of university and drama school courses to an online programme, working with students in the USA, Saudi Arabia and across the UK. Teaching for our joint MA in Shakespeare Studies with King’s College London moved online into a virtual learning environment. Funding was secured for a co-supervised doctoral student working on race and Shakespeare. Finally, at the end of last year, the Early Modern Scholars of Colour Network launched to address the significant under-representation of faculty of colour employed in permanent positions in UK universities for Shakespeare and Early Modern Studies.
“Having joined the Globe only a few months before lockdown, this last year has been something of a rollercoaster adapting to an online world alongside brilliant colleagues and freelancers. Much of my career has been based on a passion for working with students & teachers through Shakespeare & Drama with a focus on integrating equality, diversity & inclusion principles into all we do. The Globe is the most exciting theatre I know so I feel very privileged to have the opportunity to continue developing & promoting these powerful ways of learning, in such a unique role as Co-Director of Education”
— Lucy Cuthbertson
