NAVY PIER — Chicago will be throwing perhaps the largest and longest birthday party in the world next year.
To celebrate the 400th anniversary of William Shakespeare's death, the city will be hosting a year-long arts festival that officials are calling "Shakespeare 400 Chicago." Beginning in 2016, the city will host and feature artists and acts from all over the wold whose work was inspired by the British playwright, who died in 1616.
Spearheaded by the Chicago Shakespeare Theater, the festival will include celebrations of Shakepeare's work from nearly every artistic endeavor: theater, music, paintings, literature, dance and even cuisine.
"It's been years in the making — 400 years, actually," Barbara Gaines, founder and artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater, said at a press conference in the theater's lobby Friday. "'Shakespeare 400 Chicago' is making no small plans. We plan to bring this program to every neighborhood in the city."
The festival will include 850 planned events that will feature more than 1,000 artists from all over the world, said Criss Henderson, executive director of the theater.
Henderson said 60 "cultural institutions" in Chicago will take part in the celebration by hosting and coordinating their own events. The Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, Joffrey Ballet, Lyric Opera House, Harris Theater for Music and Dance and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, among many others, will host events as part of the celebration.
The festival is not just catering to the art and culture fans in Chicago, officials said. Through partnerships with the Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago Park District and Chicago Public Libraries, every Chicago resident will have a chance to celebrate or learn more about Shakespeare.
More than 500,000 Chicagoans and visitors are expected to take part in the year-long celebration, according to a press release.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel, on hand to help announce the festival, said it's fitting that the world's largest celebration of Shakespeare will be in Chicago. Like the Bard, Chicago has "made its own unique contributions to the English language," Emanuel joked.
"The power of our world-class cultural institutions uniting behind one theme serves to amplify Chicago's role as a global destination for cultural tourism," Emanuel said.
Just a few of the planned events and performances have been announced so far, most of them plays produced by international theater companies and actors. Perhaps most notable is the Shakespeare's Globe Theater's presentation of "The Merchant of Venice," which will run for 10 days starting Aug. 4.
To find out more about the festival, visit its website at shakespeare400chicago.com
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