The Shakspeare Society grants its Shakespeare Society Medal to actress Claire Bloom Jan. 29 in the Kaye Playhouse at Hunter College. Shakespearean actor-director Roger Rees will talk with Bloom about her stage career and review video clips of her most famous stage roles. Bloom's first major stage role was Ophelia at Stratford-Upon-Avon opposite the alternating Hamlets of Paul Scofield and Robert Helpmann. She has played Juliet, Ophelia, Viola, Miranda, and Cordelia at the Old Vic In London's West End, as well as Katherine of Aragon in Henry VIII, Queen Gertrude in Hamlet, Lady Constance in King John and the Queen in Cymbeline for the BBC Shakespeare television series. On Broadway, she is less known for Shakespeare, assaying roles in A Doll's House, Hedda Gabler, Rashomon, Vivat! Vivat! Regina!, Turn of the Screw and Electra. Her best-selling memoir is "Leaving a Doll's House."

Past winners of The Shakespeare Society Medal have been Professor Harold Bloom and Sir Derek Jacobi. For information on the Society and the Jan. 29 event, call (212) 327-3399 or visit http://www.shakespearesociety.org.

— By Christine Ehren