Sir Ian McKellen Releases New Apps to Make Shakespeare’s Plays More Enjoyable & Accessible

FYI: Ian McK­ellen, who first made his rep­u­ta­tion per­form­ing at the Roy­al Shake­speare Com­pa­ny in the 1970s and 80s, has just released the first of a series of iPad apps meant to make Shake­speare’s plays more acces­si­ble, espe­cial­ly for high school and col­lege stu­dents.

As McK­ellen explains above, Shake­speare’s plays were orig­i­nal­ly meant to be seen per­formed live in a the­atre, not read as books. And so these apps fea­ture actors per­form­ing dra­mat­ic scenes from the plays, while text scrolls by. They’ve just launched the first of 37 apps. It’s devot­ed to The Tem­pest, runs $5.99 on iTunes, and frankly seems well worth the price. Bene­dict Cum­ber­batch likes it. See below.

The app also includes these fea­tures:

• The full text of The Tem­pest as pub­lished in the First Folio.
• A full dig­i­tal ver­sion of Arden Shake­speare The Tem­pest.
• The abil­i­ty to switch between three dif­fer­ent lev­els of notes depend­ing on the lev­el of reader’s needs.
• A full break­down and expla­na­tion of every char­ac­ter and all of their lines across every scene.
• A linked his­tor­i­cal time line of Shake­speare’s life, his plays, his the­atres, and con­tem­po­rary con­text to put it all into per­spec­tive.
• Video expla­na­tions and dis­cus­sions by both Sir Ian McK­ellen and Pro­fes­sor Sir Jonathan Bate on char­ac­ters, themes, and the mean­ing of the play.
• A full “play at a glance” with illus­tra­tions and sum­maries to explain the play’s plot with key quotes and events.
• A his­to­ry of all the major pro­duc­tions of The Tem­pest from the 17th cen­tu­ry to the present day.
• The option to make notes, copy and high­light text that can be col­lect­ed, cor­re­lat­ed and export­ed for lat­er use.
• The option to search the play’s full text and essays.

Keep your eye on Heuris­tic Shake­speare’s iTunes site for new Shake­speare apps down the line.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Ian McK­ellen Stars in King Lear

Sir Ian McK­ellen Puts on a Daz­zling One-Man Shake­speare Show

A 68 Hour Playlist of Shakespeare’s Plays Being Per­formed by Great Actors: Giel­gud, McK­ellen & More