Qormi teacher for Shakespeare course

Clive Piscopo, a teacher of English language and literature at St Michael School, Qormi, has been awarded the English-Speaking Union's 2009 scholarship to attend the Shakespeare study course in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The course, offered by the ESU in association with the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, will be held from August 2-8, and includes a line-up of keynote speakers, classes with the Royal Shakespeare Company, lectures, drama workshops, and three Shakespeare performances.

Mr Piscopo, 24, also writes scripts for children's programme Iż-Żona on TVM and is actively involved in the local drama scene. In the past few years, a substantial number of his short stories were published, one of which has just been adapted into a short film, to be screened in Malta's first-ever International TV Short Film Festival on TVM. He was one of three nominations for the award submitted for final selection by the ESU in London by the steering committee of the ESU Malta branch.

Committee chairman Martin Scicluna said Prof. Stanley Wells, chairman of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and general editor of the Oxford Shakespeare will be visiting Malta in October.