“Let’s put on a show!”
cue the Mickey Rooney / Judy Garland reference machine (btw, Rooney played Puck in a 1935 film, that also included JAMES CAGNEY AS BOTTOM… I’ve never seen it, but just thinking about Cagney as Bottom makes me want to…)
OK. But how and what?
Continue reading “A Lot More Background: A Night with the Bard”
There is nothing like being a fresh, young teacher. No wife. No kids. Nothing to do but to lesson plan and grade papers.
[yeah, looking back on it, I probably was a brutal bastard to have as a teacher back then… sorry, guys]
Continue reading “No Longer Just a Little Background: Young Gun”
I didn’t go to UCLA to become an English teacher. My goal as I headed to Westwood was to be the next Francis Coppola (a UCLA alum), not the next Bill Lindquist.
Continue reading “A Little More Background: Bruin Bard”
I’m a blessed guy, Shakespearean-ly speaking. I had a great introduction to the Bard by my high school freshman teacher, Bill Lindquist at Hueneme High School.
He made Shakespeare seem positively ILLICIT. On the day we started Romeo and Juliet, he had us open our literature texts to the start of the play. We read the first half of the first scene, then he brought us to an abrupt, almost angry stop. He passed out Romeo and Juliet books, paperbacks, and had us look at the same scene.
“What do you notice?”
Hands shot up… “stuff” was missing.
Lindquist wrote the word “unexpurgated” on the board then explained to us that the anthology had been expurgated, had been cleaned up for our young eyes and minds.
Continue reading “A Little Background: Lucky Boy”
Fascinating lecture from the Royal Shakespeare Company re: pronunciation.
Awesome stuff…
Writing yesterday’s installment got me to thinking.
I miss the reading of the plays.
I miss the teaching of the plays.
But the think I think I miss the most is the discussion of the plays… the free and spirited exchange of ideas.
Continue reading “A Change in Plans?”
OK, you’re probably asking,
“So, why, oh egotistical one, why are you doing this?”
Continue reading “Manifesto (or “And, why–exactly–are we doing this?”)”
Here’s what I’m thinking:
Let’s read every play–from the earliest, The Comedy of Errors, to the last, The Tempest–one per month. Thirty-six plays, three years, ending with one of my favorites around the time of my son Kyle’s high school graduation (“Our revels now are ended,” indeed).
Continue reading “OK, so what are we starting here…”
OK, so I saw the Julie &Julia trailer a couple of weeks back.
And I put together a presentation on Romeo and Juliet for Kyle’s class around the same time.
Never presented, but have some stuff to share.
What if I tackled every play in the canon? I’ve read quite a few, but not all… it might give me an intellectual (as well as compositional) workout.
Let’s see where this takes us…
