Summer Shakespeare Festival

The Summer Shakespeare Festival (Czech: Letní shakespearovské slavnosti, Slovak: Letné shakespearovské slávnosti) takes place in the courtyard of Burgrave Palace at Prague Castle. The festival was originally initiated by Václav Havel. The performances are also presented at Špilberk in Brno and at Bratislava Castle in Bratislava. The organizers closely cooperate with Martin Hilský, who translated most of the staged plays.

Official poster for 2004 festival: Zuzana Vejvodová (Juliet) and Jiří Hájek (Romeo)

So far, the most acclaimed was the performance of King Lear in 2002. In 2004, director Martin Huba was selected for an ambitious project, a performance of Romeo and Juliet such as that one evening Capulets would be Slovaks and Monteks Czechs and the next day vice versa. The project failed, Huba said to the media that even though the dialogs translated by Ľubomír Feldek and Martin Hilský were perfect, they somehow did not fit together. In the end, the only Slovak-speaking character was the Nurse, performed by Emília Vášáryová.