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Ralph Alan Cohen
Ralph Alan Cohen (born 1945) is an American educator, scholar theatre director, and academic entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and Senior Advisor of the American Shakespeare Center, a theater company located in Staunton, Virginia. In 2001, as Executive Director of the ASC, he was also Project Director for the building of the Blackfriars Playhouse, a recreation of the Blackfriars Theatre, England’s first purpose-built indoor theatre, and home to Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men until the closing of the theatres in 1642.
Cohen was Gonder Professor of Shakespeare and Performance and founded the Master of Letters and Fine Arts program at Mary Baldwin University. He is the author of ShakesFear and How to Cure It: A Handbook for Teaching Shakespeare.
Cohen’s "ability to negotiate nimbly among three disciplines: scholarship, pedagogy, and theatre-making" has influenced theatrical and pedagogical practices in the United States and abroad.
Cohen grew up in Montgomery Alabama, graduated in 1963 from Sidney Lanier High School (“the Poets”), obtained his A.B. at Dartmouth College in 1967, and earned his PhD in English Renaissance Literature at Duke University in 1973.[citation needed]
Cohen joined the faculty of James Madison University in 1973, where he taught courses in playwriting, film, early modern literature, and in particular Shakespeare. Convinced that a grasp of what was happening on the stage enhanced a student of literature’s understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare’s text, Cohen took student groups to London in 1975 and in 1978 established JMU’s semester-long London program. The program was the first of its kind and was the model for international education at JMU. "During his decade-long tenure as director of study abroad, Ralph collaborated with JMU faculty members Kathleen Arthur, Carmenza Kline and David Ley to establish semester programs in Florence, Italy; Salamanca, Spain; and Paris."
Cohen led workshops and published articles on teaching, edited two special editions of the Shakespeare Quarterly (1990 and 1995) with essays devoted entirely to the classroom teaching of Shakespeare, and directed NEH Summer Institutes (1995, 2002, 2004, 2008) for college professors on using performance to teach Shakespeare. He challenged the common belief that Shakespeare’s language was archaic but argued instead that over 98% of the words in his plays are still in common usage. His book, ShakesFear and How to Cure It: The Complete Handbook for Teaching Shakespeare, gives teachers ways to help students make the words their own.
Two years prior to the opening of the Blackfriars Playhouse, Cohen proposed a three-year Master of Letters and Fine Arts program in Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin University timed to open with the completion of the Blackfriars. His concept was a 360° holistic approach to training in acting, directing, pedagogy, dramaturgy, and management with the Blackfriars playhouse at its core. After enrollment increased, Cohen retired from JMU and became Gonder Professor of Shakespeare at Mary Baldwin. In 2004, at Cohen’s request, Dame Judi Dench gowned the first three MFA recipients. As of Cohen’s retirement in 2022 the program conferred more than three-hundred degrees, and in his honor the faculty of the program created the annual Ralph Alan Cohen Award celebrating the graduate who most embodied the idea of a scholar practitioner.
Cohen began directing with the JMU mainstage production of The Taming of the Shrew in 1983. Inspired by the success of a minimal production approach to Shakespeare by companies such as Cheek by Jowl during the JMU semesters in London, Cohen developed an interest "in Elizabethan staging practices and recreating those for audiences today." In 1988, when his former student Jim Warren played the title role in the JMU production of Henry V, Warren suggested he and Cohen form the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express. The SSE was a touring company of twelve actors committed to shows no longer than “two hours traffic of the stage,” to audiences sharing light with the actors, and with actors clear on the meaning of every word they spoke. Those conditions drew enthusiastic support from scholars and multiple bookings at campuses across the country — a decade after its founding, the SSE had traveled to 47 states and 7 foreign countries — and an annual invitation to stage their three-show rep at the Folger Shakespeare Library Theatre in D.C.
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Ralph Alan Cohen
Ralph Alan Cohen (born 1945) is an American educator, scholar theatre director, and academic entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and Senior Advisor of the American Shakespeare Center, a theater company located in Staunton, Virginia. In 2001, as Executive Director of the ASC, he was also Project Director for the building of the Blackfriars Playhouse, a recreation of the Blackfriars Theatre, England’s first purpose-built indoor theatre, and home to Shakespeare’s company, the King’s Men until the closing of the theatres in 1642.
Cohen was Gonder Professor of Shakespeare and Performance and founded the Master of Letters and Fine Arts program at Mary Baldwin University. He is the author of ShakesFear and How to Cure It: A Handbook for Teaching Shakespeare.
Cohen’s "ability to negotiate nimbly among three disciplines: scholarship, pedagogy, and theatre-making" has influenced theatrical and pedagogical practices in the United States and abroad.
Cohen grew up in Montgomery Alabama, graduated in 1963 from Sidney Lanier High School (“the Poets”), obtained his A.B. at Dartmouth College in 1967, and earned his PhD in English Renaissance Literature at Duke University in 1973.[citation needed]
Cohen joined the faculty of James Madison University in 1973, where he taught courses in playwriting, film, early modern literature, and in particular Shakespeare. Convinced that a grasp of what was happening on the stage enhanced a student of literature’s understanding and enjoyment of Shakespeare’s text, Cohen took student groups to London in 1975 and in 1978 established JMU’s semester-long London program. The program was the first of its kind and was the model for international education at JMU. "During his decade-long tenure as director of study abroad, Ralph collaborated with JMU faculty members Kathleen Arthur, Carmenza Kline and David Ley to establish semester programs in Florence, Italy; Salamanca, Spain; and Paris."
Cohen led workshops and published articles on teaching, edited two special editions of the Shakespeare Quarterly (1990 and 1995) with essays devoted entirely to the classroom teaching of Shakespeare, and directed NEH Summer Institutes (1995, 2002, 2004, 2008) for college professors on using performance to teach Shakespeare. He challenged the common belief that Shakespeare’s language was archaic but argued instead that over 98% of the words in his plays are still in common usage. His book, ShakesFear and How to Cure It: The Complete Handbook for Teaching Shakespeare, gives teachers ways to help students make the words their own.
Two years prior to the opening of the Blackfriars Playhouse, Cohen proposed a three-year Master of Letters and Fine Arts program in Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin University timed to open with the completion of the Blackfriars. His concept was a 360° holistic approach to training in acting, directing, pedagogy, dramaturgy, and management with the Blackfriars playhouse at its core. After enrollment increased, Cohen retired from JMU and became Gonder Professor of Shakespeare at Mary Baldwin. In 2004, at Cohen’s request, Dame Judi Dench gowned the first three MFA recipients. As of Cohen’s retirement in 2022 the program conferred more than three-hundred degrees, and in his honor the faculty of the program created the annual Ralph Alan Cohen Award celebrating the graduate who most embodied the idea of a scholar practitioner.
Cohen began directing with the JMU mainstage production of The Taming of the Shrew in 1983. Inspired by the success of a minimal production approach to Shakespeare by companies such as Cheek by Jowl during the JMU semesters in London, Cohen developed an interest "in Elizabethan staging practices and recreating those for audiences today." In 1988, when his former student Jim Warren played the title role in the JMU production of Henry V, Warren suggested he and Cohen form the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express. The SSE was a touring company of twelve actors committed to shows no longer than “two hours traffic of the stage,” to audiences sharing light with the actors, and with actors clear on the meaning of every word they spoke. Those conditions drew enthusiastic support from scholars and multiple bookings at campuses across the country — a decade after its founding, the SSE had traveled to 47 states and 7 foreign countries — and an annual invitation to stage their three-show rep at the Folger Shakespeare Library Theatre in D.C.