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0-9739093-2-3
60 pp  6 x 9 in
$12.95 (Cdn) pb
April 2006

Cast Size: 34-60
Running Time: 75 Min
$30/Performance

Excerpt

“You slave! You cur! …you base Football player!”

About the Play
Tragic dominance scores the Golden Goal at the prestigious EFA (Elizabethan Football Association) World Cup! When the tournament began the cleats were high and the iambic pentameter rolling as competing countries searched in vain for players tragic enough to endure scathing soliloquies and conniving corner kicks in the name of football glory; and after weeks of betrayal, deceit, murder, and mayhem four semifinalists remained: Team Denmark, Team England, Team Scotland, and Team Italy. Which squad of sure-footed Tragedians will prove that they have what it takes to reach the Finals and win the World Cup of Tragedy?

Upstart Crow Sports Network (UCSN) proudly brings you Shakespeare’s World Cup, a clever hybrid of improvised sporting play and spectacle theatre transforming Shakespeare’s top four tragedies (Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello) into live football matches. Tom Middleton joins Jack Falstaff to provide all the play-by-play colour commentary with interviews and updates from that on-the-pitch historian/reporter Raphael Holinshed, as Shakespeare’s top four Tragic teams kick out the blank verse for Top Tragic Cup!

About the Authors
Chris Coculuzzi works as an educator for the Toronto District School Board and is a co-founder and member of an independent democratic school. He also works in theatre as a producer, director, actor, and playwright. He is the co-author and editor of the Shakespeare's Sports Canon series of five plays: Shakespeare's Rugby Wars, Shakespeare's World Cup, Shakespeare's Gladiator Games, Shakespeare's Comic Olympics, and Shakespeare's NHL (National History League). Other adaptations include Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities and an abridged version of Cyrano de Bergerac (co-authored with Roxanne Deans). He currently resides in Toronto with his companion Kathy and their children Cabiria, Lórien, and Paisley.

Matt Toner is a regular lecturer on progressive media theory and works in video game development in Vancouver as a Lead Designer. As a playwright Matt has developed scripts through the Master Playwrights’ Workshop of New York’s Ensemble Studio Theatre, the Frederick Douglass Creative Arts Center and Uta Hagen’s HB Studio. Matt is the co-author of four of the Shakespeare's Sports Canon series: Shakespeare's Rugby Wars, Shakespeare's World Cup, Shakespeare's Gladiator Games, and Shakespeare's NHL (National History League). Other titles include Objects in Mirror May be Closer than They Appear, Jessie Bell from Arkansas, Killing Time at the Crossroads of the World, The Pimp Hand of God, and We Unhappy Few.

Quotes
"A Palpable Hit! ...there's so much maniacal energy and a nod to the greatness of the originals that you can't help but give the show a trophy." - NOW Magazine

"...a Stoppard-inspired romp." - Eye Weekly