Globe for All Twelfth Night
Every year, as part of its relatively new Globe for All program, The Old Globe performs a Shakespeare play for free at various community venues. Twelfth Night is the third Globe for All performance our…
Category: Shakespeare
My personal Shakespeare weekend
It wasn’t intentional; in fact, both were last-minute things. But, I ended up seeing seeing two of Shakespeare’s plays in one weekend. That’s not quite a festival, but it’s more than I usually get to…
Literary MOOCs: FutureLearn and Hillsdale College
I’ve taken Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs) since their early days. I audited online classes back when the videos were grainy classroom lectures, shot from the back of the hall and accompanied by sound that…
Much Ado About Nothing at the Coronado Playhouse
I just found this post I’d written and not posted. It’s a quickie about a stage production of Much Ado About Nothing at the Coronado Playhouse back in July. The Coronado Playhouse has a tradition…
The Importance of Being Exton
I’ve seen a half-dozen productions of Richard II both live and (mostly) on DVD, and in most the knight Piers Exton, Richard’s killer, is swapped out for or combined with another character, most often Aumerle….
Thoughts on The Taming of the Shrew
My family has tickets for an upcoming performance of The Taming of the Shrew at a local community college. My teens are familiar with the story, sorta, from the movie 10 Things I Hate About…
The hero of The Merchant of Venice
I actively dislike The Merchant of Venice. That it provokes in me such a strong reaction is a testament to Shakespeare’s brilliance as a playwright. Thing is, I find the characters repulsive and the way…
The joy of tangents: “He hears with ears”
I had re-watched The Merry Wives of Windsor for a MOOC (Massively Open Online Course) I’m taking, this time the 1982 BBC-TV version with Richard Griffiths as Falstaff, and I was struck once again by…
King Lear’s motivation
Is King Lear crazy? Stupid? Suffering from dementia? Every production of King Lear must, to a certain extent, explain the guy – why does he act this way? Well, I have this crazy alternative theory…
International Women’s Day: Favorite female characters from Shakespeare
On Twitter today, Shakespeare’s Globe (@The_Globe) asked users to name their favorite women from Shakespeare’s plays. I answered there (follow me at @MidLifeLit), but wanted to expand on my answers a bit. The first fictional…