Tag Archives: Shakespeare

Far from dealing with “alternative facts, ” the Bard dealt with eternal truths.  Any other quotes come to mind?

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t.” – Polonius Los Angeles playwright and composer Michael Shaw Fisher of Orgasmico Theatre Company has designed a new musical: a fill-in-the-blanks prequel to one of Shakepeare’s most popularly referenced plays, The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark.  The show is now in extension at Sacred Fools Theater Company through November 19th. Mostly written as a fan-fiction,  Skullduggery  ...

This Week in Shakespeare, the weekly video series created by bicoastal actors Liza de Weerd and Brian Weiss, hit a major milestone this week by posting its 100th episode.  To mark this special occasion, de Weerd and Weiss chose married actors Kitty Swink and Armin Shimerman as the epsisode’s subjects.  Shimerman, best known for originating the role of popular Ferengi character Quark in the Star ...

If you’ve ever walked through a museum like LACMA or the Norton Simon, it’s likely you’ve run into art objects from antiquity.  These objects are not signed.  There’s no clue as to the artisan’s name.  They are of anonymous origin. And yet the objects are undeniably true works of art, representing aesthetic sensibilities and skills requiring years to develop. I was reminded of this anonymous ...

Radical? Maybe. Pursuing a modern concept of producing Shakespeare’s plays, artistic director and actor Scott Ellis founded Merely Theatre, which stage gender-blind productions in repertory, which he discusses in a brief interview with The Stage, UK. “I think in a modern society we should be aiming to be as 50:50 as possible. As good feminists, we believe that there should be equal opportunities for male ...

Alan Rickman was that rarest of actors, a true star of both stage and screen.  It seems fitting to honor his passing with his reading of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130.

Kenneth Branagh’s Theater Company is simulcasting their London production of The Winter’s Tale  on Thanksgiving, November 26.  The play stars Branagh and Judi Dench.  Movie theater venues and tickets are available on the company’s website.  Upcoming simulcast shows include The Entertainer  and Romeo and Juliet.

Playbill: “[Director Phyllida] Lloyd was inspired to direct an all-female production in reaction to the fact that for every job available to a woman in the theatre, there were two available for men. While the statistics were applicable across the industry, she focused on the actors, saying, “I was fed up with the young people – teenagers – being subjected again and again to nights ...

This Week in Shakespeare is the brainchild of bicoastal actors Liza de Weerd and Brian Weiss. Beginning in April of 2014, the 450th anniversary of the Bard’s birth, the pair would perform weekly short scenes under the shadow of Shakespeare’s statue in New York’s Central Park. By June 2015, they had covered the entire canon and have since expanded their body of work to include ...

The New York Review of Books:  A thorough review of The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606 by James Shapiro discusses Shakespeare’s writing of King Lear in the context of the artist’s life.  How did the final version of the play veer from the source material – and why?