March Madness, nah… give me some BARD MADNESS!!!

OK, it’s March and time for the basketball tourney. But like I did a couple of years ago (though not in March, alas) when i did a Macbeth Movie Madness bracket, this year I’m going to do a Bard Madness Bracket to pick your (notice not my) favorite play…

So below, you’ll find a link to a PDF bracket. Now there aren’t 64 teams, er plays, so I went with a 32-play bracket. And to do so, I had to do some funky stuff:

  • Both parts of Henry IV are conflated into a single play
  • All parts of Henry VI are conflated into a single play
  • I’m only using the plays I’ve read as part of the Project

Even with those actions, I still had 33… so like the NCAA tournament, I have a play-in competition: King John vs. The Two Gentlemen of Verona.

Each “round” will have its own time period. For example, the play-in game will be Wednesday only. Then the second half of the bracket will take place this Thursday and Friday, the first half on Saturday and Sunday, and so on.

How did I do the seedings? Well, about as well as the actual Tournament committee did (even as a Bruin, I think USC got robbed). What I did was take my final rankings of the play and used those. Of course, that makes for some interesting rankings: Hamlet at #11; Titus going up against Merchant of Venice…with Titus the higher seed; a possible second-round matchups between Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra, and Twelfth Night and As You Like It.

How will this be run? I think–I’m still working this out in my brain–I’ll do it through a combination of Twitter hashtags, Instagram quizzes, blog quizzes, and maybe even Facebook comments.

Regardless, play along, and let’s see what you all think!

Pre-Tourney Bracket

2 Replies to “March Madness, nah… give me some BARD MADNESS!!!”

  1. As I little to no knowledge of “traditional” sports (much more a swimming/skiing fan)- I really have no idea how brackets work. I’d like to participate because this looks fun, but I may need some guidance.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *