The Welsh Government Announces Dylan Thomas 100

2014 Cultural Festival To Celebrate the Life, Work and Legacy of Fabled Welsh Poet

New www.dylanthomas100.org – for All Things Dylan, Including 2014 Events

The Prince of Wales, Royal Patron of Dylan Thomas 100, Records One of His Favorite Dylan Thomas Poems, 'Fern Hill,’ to Mark National Poetry Day

New York, October 3, 2013               Today, October 3, is National Poetry Day in Wales.  What more appropriate time to talk about the country’s storied poet – Dylan Thomas.  The centenary of Dylan Thomas’s birth (born Swansea: October 27, 1914; died New York City: November 9, 1953) will be celebrated by a yearlong countrywide cultural festival- Dylan Thomas 100 - in Wales in 2014.  A new interactive map-based and eponymously named digital hub www.dylanthomas100.org  makes it easy and fun to discover Dylan Thomas, explore places in Wales he is connected with, engage via social networking and locate festival events via a Timeline tab.

The site www.americas.visitwales.com  is a resource for planning your Dylan-themed trip to Wales and for downloading a program of Dylan Thomas 100 events. The program will be updated regularly.

The Dylan Thomas 100 Festival’s Royal Patron, HRH Prince Charles’s new reading of “Fern Hill” is now available online at http://www.dylanthomas100.org/english/multimedia/prince-charles-reads-fern-hill/. ‘Fern Hill' is one of Thomas's best known poems. The Prince of Wales said: "For National Poetry Day, I was very glad, if somewhat hesitant!–to be able to record a reading of one of my personal favorites, 'Fern Hill', with its poignant and moving evocation of a rural west Wales childhood. I cannot help feeling this is one of the great legacies of Thomas's poetry – that it inspires people to appreciate the incomparable landscape of Wales."

Honorary Patron and Dylan’s granddaughter, Hannah Ellis has joined the Welsh Government in endorsing Dylan Thomas 100 and its digital hub.

Dylan Thomas 100 and www.dylanthomas100.org will of course highlight Welsh locations closely associated with the poet-like his birthplace, Swansea, his old writing shed, and his home -The Boathouse - in the town of Laugharne.  And New Quay-template for the ‘Under Milk Wood’ village, Llareggub (‘bugger all’ spelled backwards!).  However, the festival encompasses the entire country and beyond.  And the program ranges across all artistic disciplines – from literature, to opera, theatre and painting. From high profile exhibits and live performances to community-based educational programs.

This celebration will transcend geographic boundaries, stretching beyond Wales to New York. In one of its most inventive and ambitious projects, National Theatre Wales, in cooperation with BBC Wales, will stage a multimedia global event.  In a combination of live broadcast, film and performance, a distinguished Welsh cast will engage with contemporary Welsh poet Owen Sheer’s 60-minute version of ‘Under Milk Wood’ in a transatlantic live-linked event, with characters and voices in various locations from Laugharne to New York. For the live theater audiences, this may be an intimate audience of six in a dressing room with actor Eve Myles (TORCHWOOD) or hundreds on a street in Laugharne with Artistic Director / Actor Michael Sheen (FROST / NIXON; THE QUEEN)
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