To Read or not To Read, That is the Question

Shakespeare at Play iOS App Launches Worldwide

TORONTO, Oct. 8, 2013 /PRNewswire/ - Today, Shakespeare at Play's iOS app was officially launched in over 50 countries worldwide. Shakespeare at Play takes Shakespeare's classic texts and marries them with full-length video productions and cutting-edge multitouch technology to bring the Bard's works into the 21st century. Shakespeare at Play's iOS app is the perfect interactive educational tool for teaching and learning the works of William Shakespeare.

"Shakespeare is not meant to be read, it is meant to be performed," said Tim Chisholm, founder of Shakespeare at Play. With Shakespeare at Play's iOS app, the reader can watch full-length productions of Shakespeare's plays while scrolling along with the accompanying text. The app can be downloaded for free from the App Store for the iPhone and iPad, and the individual plays can be purchased within the app for $3.99 USD. Romeo & Juliet and Macbeth are currently available, and Hamlet will be released in October. Additional productions will follow in 2014.

Shakespeare at Play takes the intimidation out of learning a 400 year old text by also including easy-to-understand annotations and audio introductions to each scene by the University of Toronto's Noam Lior and a custom glossary of terms for words and phrases that don't appear in in the iOS dictionary. Simply tap on any word or phrase that appears in bold and you'll be provided with a plain english definition.

"Products like Shakespeare at Play provide us with new tools for negotiating the tension between being faithful to the original plays and being accessible to a modern audience" said Lior, who will be using the Shakespeare at Play app this fall to teach Hamlet. "It also helps us to demonstrate the visual and physical aspects of the play that are so easily lost on the page."

Shakespeare at Play was founded by Tim Chisholm and is produced by Rick Chisholm Productions Ltd. Rick Chisholm, President of Rick Chisholm Productions Ltd., was the EVP, Broadcasting of Canada's Olympic Broadcast Media Consortium, where he oversaw all aspects of on-air and online production of the 2012 Summer Olympic Games in London and the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver. "Taking my decades of experience in production and broadcasting to a new, interactive medium has been an invigorating transition," said Chisholm.

Shakespeare at Play is also available in individual editions in the iBookstore for the iPad and Mac OS X. Built with Apple's iBooks Author software, these interactive ebooks carry over all of the features available in the iOS application, and each video is permanently embedded so that teachers and students can access them with or without an internet connection.

Each play in the iOS app includes:

• A streaming video of every scene in the play, with the option to download for offline use.
• Audio introductions to every scene by University of Toronto's Noam Lior
• Annotations throughout with textual clarifications and points of interest
• An interactive glossary to help understand more obscure words and phrases
• Free text-only versions of all of the plays available to purchase

Shakespeare at Play:
Shakespeare at Play is a unique learning tool that combines Shakespeare's classic text with modern video and multi-touch technology. With the Shakespeare at Play app, users have the ability to read and watch Shakespeare's plays simultaneously, allowing them to experience Shakespeare as it was intended: in performance. For more information, please visit www.shakespeareatplay.ca

SOURCE Harmony Marketing