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“A good Poet’s made as well as born”

Ben Jonson’s Eulogy to William Shakespeare (First Folio, 1623)

Full List of Blank Verse episodes available on the episodes page

Ben’s Vlog Episodes available on the Ben Jonson’s Vlog Episodes Page.

About Blank Verse

Blank Verse is a webseries about William Shakespeare and the great writers of his time, re-imagined as modern day university students. Season one of this weekly webseries premiered on August 25 via youtube and blankverse.tv and aired every Sunday until December 29th.

Featuring famous names like Chris Marlowe, Ben Jonson and Thomas Kyd, the series takes the historical events and context in which Shakespeare produced his famous works and throws them into the contemporary world. What would it be like if Shakespeare had not existed until now? How do we define greatness in our modern culture? Who is William Shakespeare?

Created by theatre and film graduates from the University of British Columbia, and featuring rising stars from across Canada, and established voices in the Vancouver Theatre Community, this ambitious project draws attention to the struggle of artists in our contemporary world, and examines our place within the cultural atmosphere of the past 500 years; all while letting a group of theatre nerds play within the life of, arguably, the best writer of all time.

Ben Jonson’s Vlog

Ben Jonson’s Vlog is a spin off of from Blank Verse with new episodes every Tuesday and Friday from March 25, 2014  - May 2, 2014.  The series is written by Scott Button, Directed by Laura McLean and features Emma Middleton as Benjamina Jonson. This stand alone story is inspired by Ben Jonson’s play “Isle of the Dogs” that he wrote with the infamous pornographic writer Thomas Nashe. This fascinating story provides the inspiration for the series of vlogs and will take the audience on a journey with Benjamina Jonson a few months after the events from Season 1 of Blank Verse.

Blank Verse: A Mid-Summer Night’s Dream

Blank Verse: a Midsummer Night’s Dream uses the characters and events from the world created in the Blank Verse webseries as inspiration for a comedic, stand alone, half hour episode of television to be pitched as part of the CBC’s Comedy Coup in Fall 2014. We will keep this page up to date with progress for this pitch as we advance, and attempt to give Blank Verse a second life on network television through this unique process. Check out our unique pitch page for this at http://comedycoup.cbc.ca/blankversemidsummer 

About Niknok Media

Amanda Konkin founded Nik Nok Media as an outlet for producing interesting, creative and cost-efficient productions that challenge traditional modes of artistic creation. Nik Nok Media aims to integrate aspects of theatre, film, and digital media in interesting ways and is driven by the desire to rethink the boundaries of art.  As an avid supporter of independent artistic productions Nik Nok Media believes that the rich array of enthusiastic and creative talent in the city of Vancouver makes it an ideal place to develop new material and hopes to bring these ideals forward into all of their future projects. After co-founding 4geeksmedia, an online platform for geek media, culture and events in the lower mainland, Nik Nok Media has branched into producing fictional webseries content with Blank Verse.

If Blank Verse is the brainchild of Amanda Konkin, then it was birthed by Ryan Caron, Andrew Lynch and Geneviève Bolduc brought to life by Xander Williams and made beautiful by Charlotte Labelle. Everyone who has come on board since the project’s inception in March 2013 has worked to build the world that these characters inhabit and have each made the show their own. Blank Verse could not exist without the talent, dedication and passion of the amazing community working together to make this project a reality!!

Special Thanks

The Arts Club Theatre Company, Alliance for Arts, Beaumont Studios, Oliver Millar, Rebecca Weerts and the Vancouver theatre community.