Playing the Knave, Decolonising Shakespeare

Professor Gina Bloom of the University of California, Davis was on sabbatical in Cape Town last year when Covid struck - and lockdowns ensued! One upshot of her extended stay in South Africa was the opportunity to collaborate with theatre maker and educator Lauren Bates.


Bloom and Bates have been piloting the implementation of Play the Knave in South African schools. Play the Knave is a mixed reality video game that enables virtual design and performance of scenes from Shakespeare - a wonderful way to get students to play (and play with) Shakespeare. It was designed by Bloom and a group of colleagues at UC Davis to be a portable teaching and learning tool. All a school needs is a TV or projector.

Says Bloom: “Lauren will start bringing the game and our co-developed lessons into Western Cape classrooms for a trial run starting in July and we hope that once we iron out all the kinks, we can start planning to distribute the game kits as loan resources to school districts.”


Bloom and Bates presented their work to a seminar at the Shakespeare Association of America's annual meeting in April, and subsequently as part of a series on digital Shakespeares for San Diego State University’s Digital Humanities Initiative.

Watch their presentation to find out more about how this innovative approach is helping to decolonise Shakespeare in South African schools!