Contact: Sammy McDavid
STARKVILLE, Miss.—Shakespeare’s grand account of how England’s hero king led one of the greatest upsets in European military history will be staged Feb. 16 at Mississippi State.
“Henry V” is the latest presentation of the university’s 2015-16 Lyceum Series.
Performed by the Virginia-based American Shakespeare Center, the program begins at 7 p.m. in Bettersworth Auditorium of historic Lee Hall.
General admission tickets are $25 and may be purchased—and additional information obtained—at www.lyceum.msstate.edu or by visiting the Colvard Student Union, Suite 314.
Believed written around 1599 and concluding the Bard’s history play collection, Henry V is, at once, touching, heroic, savage and comic as it explores the nature of greatness. Perhaps more than any other, this work makes the audience part of a story focused around the Battle of Agincourt, France, during the Hundred Years War.
By deploying large numbers of deadly longbow archers, Henry’s numerically inferior English force defeated the French army on Oct. 25—St. Crispin’s Day—in 1415.
Act IV features one of the most memorable of examples of Shakespeare’s creative skills. Though fictional, his account of Henry’s brief, inspiring “band of brothers” address has come to be known as the “St. Crispin Day Speech.”
Based at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, ASC’s theatrical troupe performs 16 different titles in five distinct seasons, 52 weeks a year. Along with its traveling company, ASC on Tour, the center also provides education programming for students and scholars both at home and on the road. For more, visit www.americanshakespearecenter.com.
MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.