This month we are celebrating the work of Prof. Nicoleta Cinpoeş who has both been successful in her application to the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange and whose book project Shakespeare on European Festival Stages, has just been released by the prestigious Bloomsbury Press, in the Arden Shakespeare series.

Shakespeare on European Festival Stages emerges from Prof. Cinpoeş work with and on Shakespeare Festivals, spanning over a decade, work which has been instrumental in conceptualising this European phenomenon, as well as its impact on festivals’ cultural agency and on Shakespeare performed. Edited in collaboration with Prof. Florence March (University of Montpellier) and Prof. Paul Prescott (University of California, Merced), the volume will be launched at a number of festivals across Europe, the first being scheduled at the International Shakespeare Festival, Craiova, Romania, in May 2022.

In addition to this prestigious publication, Prof. Cinpoeş has been awarded the maximum grant in the Ulam Programme of The Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange (NAWA). The Programme supports outstanding foreign researchers from around the world to collaborate with Polish universities and scientific institutions.  Of the 290 applications across all fields of research, 51 were successful

Her project: Romeo and Juliet: The East-side Story will be conducted on location and in partnership with the University of Warsaw between 1 August 2022 – 31 March 2023. The work focuses on telling the ‘East side story’ of Romeo and Juliet. It aims first to map out the play’s arrival in countries positioned, in terms of borders – both geographical and of adaptation – East and secondly, to assess whether its early stage and print success holds in the third millennium. Building on her previous research on Hungary and Romania, it aims to explore the early and most recent life of the play in Poland, and longer term to expand to Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece. This opportunity is crucial to writing the broader narrative of Romeo and Juliet in the region and the impact it had on the reception of Shakespeare in Central and Eastern Europe, providing the missing pieces to a timely, updated history of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet in performance.