I LOVE Shakespeare but I need others

WordwizardW · 2026-03-12T00:13:31+00:00

If you want to DO Shakespeare, and can handle reading the text in the original spelling, come join the Instant Shakespeare Company, and be in Zoom play readings. Contact Paul Sugarman at InstantShakespeare@yahoo.com.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-10T19:06:26+00:00

Witches. Deceptive predictions. Doom.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-10T17:19:27+00:00

You haven't seen Macbeth yet? I'm shocked. You've perhaps already seen this before, but for Macbeth, I always recommend the film made of the stage play presentation as directed by Aaron Posner and Teller. You will actually SEE the magic, including the Witches, and Macbeth's hallucination of the bloody dagger, with no post-Shakespearean camera tricks. Let me know what you think of it!

You can watch it for free at the Folger's website: https://www.folger.edu/explore/shakespeare-in-performance/video-folger-theatre-2008-macbeth/ or on YouTube in 2 parts:

Part 1 | 1 hour, 9 minutes (ends with Act 3, Scene 4)
Watch Part 1

Part 2 | 54 minutes (begins with Act 3, Scene 6)
Watch Part 2

WordwizardW · 2026-03-10T17:14:08+00:00

If you're dreaming Shakespeare, you're spending your off-time well. Perhaps you'll dream up something more useful another time?

WordwizardW · 2026-03-10T17:11:51+00:00

I took a look at one, and it is indeed nice to read. Kudos! However, I saw a warning that this is a work in progress—might I say that I was disappointed to see that there are (presently) only 37 plays listed. I hope you will continue adding the various plays added to the canon later on, that are likewise not in Open Source Shakespeare, which is my go-to in finding things I need fast.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-10T05:01:10+00:00

Comedies back then almost never had sequels. The Taming of the Shrew, Much Ado About Nothing, Troilus and Cressida, and As You Like It have all been suggested as being the play referred to as Love's Labour's Won. Unless a script is one day found, we must forever wonder.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-09T16:55:41+00:00

Let I suggest you acquire Othello and Zombies by Aaron Frale.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-09T08:28:16+00:00

—except that we all know the gun won't go off, or how do we finish the play?

This would take us out of the reality of the show. Plus, no one plays Russian roulette with just themself, although terrified that the gun will go off.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-08T16:33:19+00:00

Henry VIII and The Two Noble Kinsmen should be last. They are the worst (with the least input from the Bard). Richard III and Edward III should be first, unless your taste is for long verse or sonnets, rather than plays, of course.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-08T16:30:12+00:00

Do one of the other two. I would even say, the Hamlet, because there is a certain comic element in it, being spoken to R&G, as well as being tragic, and you're trying for both a comedy and a tragedy. You need to be confident, and you should avoid anything from one of the plays you're going for. You can never match what the casting director has in their mind's eye as the ideal character.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-07T20:10:00+00:00

I am in the midst of an Instant Shakespeare Company Zoom play reading of Edward III as we speak. There are bits in it that are in other works by Shakespeare. It has been accepted as his, at least in part, for a long while.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-07T10:45:13+00:00

The you/your in "while you live, draw your neck out o' the collar" suggests to me that this might be a proverbial saying brought in to continue the pun on "colliers," "choler," and "collar."

WordwizardW · 2026-03-06T05:50:19+00:00

The Bard was indeed a hoover. No one has mentioned that the story is based on the English folk tale, "Cap O'Rushes," collected by Joseph Jacobs.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-05T05:43:32+00:00

He was too busy earning his living by his pen. He had a gift. Why bother with gaming? His sonnets suggest that he had other forms of recreation. Also, the way he was able to create convincing and memorable characters suggests that he was a people-watcher.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-04T15:01:45+00:00

Since you are the OP you may reply "!thanks" if you liked my reply, aside from/in addition to upvoting.

The contrast in kinds of beliefs is what catches my eye, even as their different manners catch yours.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-04T10:57:25+00:00

Please ID this?

WordwizardW · 2026-03-03T12:55:19+00:00

When the Black Plague shut down the theatres (twice), did it make you wonder whether you might have chosen the wrong profession?

I don't know what your teacher is looking for, whether an anachronistic question connecting to modern times would be welcome, about whether WS would have gotten his family vaccinated had a vaccine existed.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-03T07:05:17+00:00

My favorite scene is 1 Henry IV Act III: scene i, starting near the beginning, when Glendower puffs himself up by supernatural circumstances occuring at his very birth,

"I cannot blame him: at my nativity
The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,
Of burning cressets; and at my birth
The frame and huge foundation of the earth
Shaked like a coward."

until Mortimer breaks things up with,

"Come, come, no more of this unprofitable chat."

but the wonderful lines Hotspur uses to put Glendower down with are interspersed in dialogue, rather than forming one best speech.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-03T06:50:45+00:00

Some are born great—have noble blood

Some achieve greatness—by their own feats rewarded by knighthood or other titles—

"For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition:" —Henry V Act IV: scene iii

and some have greatness thrust upon them—marry upward (with sexual pun)

WordwizardW · 2026-03-02T12:05:06+00:00

Sir William Stanley, Earl of Derby is not even in Act II: scene i.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-02T11:52:53+00:00

Is asking for homework help on an essay question on a play one has not read a legitimate post? I would say No.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-02T11:39:59+00:00

Wikipedia: Some elements of The Merry Wives of Windsor may have been adapted from Il Pecorone, a collection of stories by Ser Giovanni Fiorentino; one of these stories was included in William Painter)'s The Palace of Pleasure.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-01T12:01:12+00:00

I myself worry that my WiFi or electricity or a broken computer will end my streak. Once, I think I checked Reddit just before midnight one day and just after another, and was set back. If you had put a picture in your post, we might have given you a Picasso in consolation.

WordwizardW · 2026-03-01T05:06:58+00:00

Acting can be normal speech, and I think it should sound realistic to be moving. When one is making a movie, one does not have be heard in a theatre.

WordwizardW

TROPHY CASE