OP Recordings

Media Files

• Romeo and Juliet - Prologue 1

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• Sonnet-1

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• Sonnet-116

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• Troilus and Cressida Act 1 Scene 1

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Supporting Documents

• Notes to accompany the transcription of Romeo and Juliet
• Sonnet 1 and Sonnet 116 Transcriptions
• Act 1 scene 1 [Troilus]
• Notes to accompany the transcription of Troilus and Cressida

For the two productions at Shakespeare’s Globe, I made a recording of the whole of each play (using the text chosen and cut by the directors) to help the actors get a feel for the accent. These were made in 2004 (for Romeo) and 2005 (for Troilus). A complete OP reading of the Sonnets was made at the request of sonneteer Will Sutton in 2007. Information about how to obtain these recordings is given below. 

Shakespeare’s Globe keeps a video of all its productions, including the OP performances, and Friends of the Globe or bona fide researchers can view these, upon application to the librarian. See the information here.

The Globe also made a 20-minute CD of five of the Troilus cast performing some of their speeches. This is also available to interested scholars if they get in touch with me.

US dialectologist Paul Meier is also planning to include two OP recordings in an eBook for actors, available in September 2008, called Voicing Shakespeare. Further information can be found at his Dialect Services site. Paul is also the initiator of the International Dialects of English Archive, a collection of nearly a thousand recordings of people reading and speaking in their native accents/dialects.

I hope more people and companies will experiment with OP, to hear the effect it has on our auditory experience of the plays and poems, and to hear alternative interpretations to my own.

Since 2005 there have been a few other productions in OP, including an event in August 2007 called As I Pronounced it to You, directed by Alex Torra at the Playwright Tavern in New York City.

If anyone is planning to work with this genre, this site can be become the hub from which to share such information. Again, please get in touch, and news of your productions and plans will be posted.